


Wishes

by strictlyamess



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Disney World Employees AU, F/M, M/M, Multi, Sexual Situations, Slow-ish burn, breaking up, loaded with WDW backstage intel so tread carefully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-04-17 15:37:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 62,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14192241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strictlyamess/pseuds/strictlyamess
Summary: It's one thing to vacation at the Happiest Place on Earth with all your friends.Working there with them is another thing entirely.(or: the Disney World Employee/Cast Member AU written by a former Disney World Cast Member that some people asked for but most did not)





	1. "When You Wish Upon A Star" (Bill)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if something's starred, there's an explanation at the end for what it is! there's a lot of weird Disney lingo interspersed in here.
> 
> also, like I Burn, I Pine, I Perish, for those who read that, each chapter will be from a different Loser perspective :)
> 
> enjoy, Disney nerds <3

**BILL DENBROUGH - GUEST RELATIONS, MAGIC KINGDOM**  
**THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8TH**  
**7:48 A.M.**

There was absolutely no fucking reason for the Magic Kingdom to ever open earlier than 9 a.m.. That was indisputable truth among MK workers; the tunnels under the park that the employees (cast members) used were too nasty for any human to have to wander through between the hours of 1 a.m. and 8 a.m. (Third shift cast members were brave and foolish souls.)

Bill Denbrough really couldn’t be blamed, then, for rolling in with just a few minutes to spare on an early-open Monday (well, actually a Thursday, but his Monday. He’d applied to have a regular weekend, but didn’t get it because he hadn’t been working for the company for a million years, so his days off were Tuesday and Wednesday, and it was a huge bummer). As soon as he got off the West Clock bus, he made a beeline for the mouth of the tunnels to clock in on the computer next to the Mouseketeeria (the cafeteria for cast members - “The Mouse” for short). He wasn’t the only one, either - everyone was walking fast, trying to make sure they were in on time lest they get a point on their records. That was what MK got, Bill supposed, for opening a whole hour before what was strictly necessary.

Once he was clocked in (with two minutes to spare, no less), Bill slowed down, taking a more leisurely pace as he made his way through the tunnels towards City Hall. The rest of the Guest Relations cast members would be pissed with him, but he didn’t care. They’d left him out to dry with angry guests more times than he could count.

Almost immediately, he was just about bowled over by somebody plowing their way towards the Mouse. He glared over, hoping that it was a bitchy entertainment cast member he could tell off, but to his dismay and concern, it was his acquaintance Eddie, a Character Attendant who he spoke to quite often on tours. He seemed to be on the run from someone...and given that he worked pretty exclusively with Princesses, that was probably true.

“Eddie?” Bill asked, and Eddie stopped in his tracks. “Are you all right?”

Eddie turned around, shaken up by the fact that he’d been recognized (there were SO many cast members that worked at the Magic Kingdom), and blinked woozily back at Bill. “Oh. Yeah. Hi, Bill. You taking people my way today?”

“I dunno if I have a tour,” Bill said, “but I will if I do. Which way is your way?”

“Fantasyland,” Eddie replied, “Princess Fairytale Hall. Not Adventureland anymore, thank God.”

“What’s so bad about Adventureland?” Before he’d taken the Guest Relations gig, Bill had been an attractions cast member in Adventureland and Liberty Square. Granted, his allegiance was much more to the Liberty side, as he’d been a butler at the Haunted Mansion (and a damn great one, too, even if he did still have his stutter then), but Adventureland was still a big source of pride for him.

“Hecklers,” Eddie said cryptically, “and everyone in Adventureland always asks if I’m friends with Pan, because he used to meet there. I hate that. Anyways, it’ll be a pretty slow day at PFT, so if you’re doing tours, put any kids in Tiana’s line. It’ll be short, and she’s a sweetheart.”

“Roger roger,” Bill said, saluting him. “You’re a good man, Eddie….shit, I have no idea what your last name is. I’ve only ever read your name off of your nametag.”

“Kaspbrak,” Eddie offered, smiling thinly. “Not that you’ll remember.”

“Probably not,” Bill admitted. “I’ll see you later, though.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Eddie promised, disappearing through the doors of the Mouse.

Running into Eddie had made Bill even later than he was originally planning to be. His coworkers were going to be livid. Hopefully there wasn’t a tour waiting on him.

Of course, because the world loved a good joke, when Bill walked into City Hall, his coordinator was right up in his face almost immediately. “What is the matter with you?? You have a tour waiting!”

“Cool,” Bill rolled his eyes and smoothed out his vest. “What’s the situation?”

“A couple of C-list VIPs. Kids from a recent horror film, I think. Seven of them.”

“Girls?” Bill asked, quietly hoping for an affirmative answer.

“Just one,” his coordinator said, glancing over. “Six boys.”

“Fuck.” Bill sighed and slid on his sunglasses. “No Tiana this time, I guess. I’ll start ‘em with Richie instead.”

“I dunno if Richie still works mornings,” said the coordinator, frowning, “he likes that late night CP shift garbage. But if he’s here, he’ll probably tip the boat and drown ‘em, so...godspeed, I guess.”

Bill stepped out neatly from behind the customer service booth. He spotted his group right away. They were all about 13 years old, and extremely loud.

“Hey there, kiddos!” he called. “Ready to make some magic?”

The children cheered, and Bill swept them out and towards Adventureland.

\----

Miraculously, they made it to the Jungle Cruise in about ten minutes. The group only got distracted by the swords in the Agrabah Bazaar once (and incredibly, it was the girl that was most excited about them), and were less interested in the spitting camels at the Aladdin ride than Bill thought they would be.

He approached the cast member at the head of the Jungle Fastpass line while the kids took a picture with the ride sign for Instagram. “I’ve got a group of fourteen - seven kids and seven moms - and we want to ride Richie’s bote.”

The cast member rolled his eyes. “Of course, Richie’s bote. It’s a miracle you caught him - usually he doesn’t get scheduled until noon or later, but he’s here today, whining about having to spiel at 'the asscrack of dawn' or whatever. He's basically a bat: blind and nocturnal.”

“Grumpy Richie is good luck for us,” Bill said, smiling. “I was kind of hoping he’d leave the kids in the Cambodian ruins show scene.”

“He just might.” The cast member waved Bill along, and Bill called back to the boys. They snaked their way through the line until they got to the dock, where another cast member in khaki held them back.

“You want Richie, right?” she said, adjusting her wide-brimmed hat. “Good timing. He’ll be rolling in in a sec.”

“Who is Richie?” one of the boys asked, looking at Bill curiously.

Bill shook his head and smiled. The kid really had no idea.

“Aaaaaaaand we’re back,” called a loud voice, saving Bill from actually answering the boy’s question. Bill turned to see Richie steering a boat to the unload dock. His glasses were steamed up from the Florida humidity, and his hat was hanging around his neck by a cord because his hair was too unruly for the hat to stay on his head. In short, he was a SIGHT. The kids gawked at him as he pulled up to the pier and stopped the boat, yammering all the while:

“I hope you’ve had as much fun as I have over these past four weeks...which is to say, none at all, I hope you had no fun, you’ve been terrible. Parting is such sweet sorrow, yadda yadda yadda, get out of my bote. Watch your head. Just kidding, you can’t actually watch your own head. Watch somebody else’s head, I guess.”

Richie’s rambling was sweet music to Bill’s ears. The two of them had been friends since they’d done Ad-Lib orientation together some two years prior. They’d been separated to different attractions - Richie to Pirates of the Caribbean, initially, and Bill to Mansion - but they still managed to make time for each other every now and again, and Bill loved to take his tours down to the Jungle Cruise so he could spend time with his friend.

It wasn't just friendship that brought Bill's tours back to Jungle again and again, though. Bill was justified in bringing people down Richie’s way. Richie was by far the funniest Skipper in the Jungle. Everyone had been kind of surprised when he’d been sent to Pirates right off the bat - the boy was basically put on Earth to narrate shitty Disney journeys through plastic wilderness, so as soon as he could put in to cross-train, he had jumped to Jungle and not looked back.

“Hey Rich,” Bill called, “heard you were giving out free two-week vacations. Got room for fifteen more?”

Richie’s face lit up when he spotted Bill on the dock. “Big Bill, on MY bote? Dreams really do come true! Magic is real, folks, you heard it here first and not from anyone else on this wack vacation property--”

“Beep beep, Richie,” Bill said mildly, unable to hide his giant smile as he moved to hug his friend.

“I can’t believe ‘beep beep’ has lasted the test of time,” Richie grumbled. “I hate the Tomorrowland Speedway.” He turned to the kids. “Okay, single file, sit all the way around, both sides of the crates please or we’ll flip and the gators will eat you. Don’t climb over the crates, you’ll fall and I’ll laugh and then probably get fired. All aboard!”

The kids clambered eagerly on to Richie’s bote, chattering excitedly to themselves. Their mothers followed them with great hesitation and an obvious sense of dread. Bill got in last, and secured a seat next to Richie.

“We all here? Great! If not, oh well.” Richie got the ‘all clear’ from a fellow cast member, and put the boat into gear. “Welcome to the Richie Tozier express, I think you’ll find it river-ting. I know you’re all thrilled to spend the next two weeks with me as your tour guide, but please, hold your applause until we’re past this tribe of hand-eating cannibals….”

Richie’s bote was always an exciting experience, and Bill found himself laughing more than the kids at certain spots. He knew that he shouldn’t be encouraging some of the jokes - Richie was supposed to stick to a script, and he’d almost gotten fired a few times because he couldn’t rein in his giant mouth - but he couldn’t help it. Richie was a comedian, through and through.

After the tour was over, the kids all insisted on getting a picture with Richie, so he graciously climbed out of the boat with them and handed things over to another khaki-clad cast member. (It was his turn to rotate, anyway.) They took photos on everyone’s iPhone, and then the kids scrambled away to edit and compare, so Bill had a few minutes alone with Richie.

“How goes it, Big Bill?” Richie asked, wiping sweat off of his forehead with the back of his hand. “Plaid looks good on you, as always.”

“Butler uniform looked better,” Bill said wistfully, tugging at his vest. “I miss Mansion, except for the heavy coat.”

“Anything’s better than khaki shorts,” Richie said sagely. “I’d kill to cross-train at Mansion. They won’t let me, though. They know I’d just sit around and scare kids all day.”

Bill shrugged. “I mean, I used to just let people fall down on the moving belt. I can’t imagine you’d be any worse.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty fucking awful, Billiam.” Richie shoved his hands in his shorts pockets. “Anyways. Um. I have a query.”

“Shoot,” said Bill, eyeing the kids. They were just about ready to go.

“Where’s Cute Character Attendant today?” Richie’s ears had gone scarlet, and not from the sun.

Bill shot him a withering look. “I don’t know every single person that works in MK, Rich.”

“You know this guy. I’ve seen you talking to him.” There was desperation in Richie’s eyes, which was new and disconcerting. “Small, pretty smile, shrill voice. I made an Aladdin joke about the loaf of bread in my pants and he told me that if he had a genie, he would wish me away.”

Bill squinted incredulously. “Eddie?!”

A huge, goofy smile slid across Richie’s face. “Eddie…”

Realization hit Bill like a freight train, and he let out a barking laugh. “You’re the heckler! Eddie said he had a heckler, and it's you!”

“Where is he?” Richie begged. “Bill, please.”

“Goodbye, Richie,” Bill sang, re-joining his group. Behind him, he could all but hear Richie attempting to keep from cursing.

It seemed that he was going to have to pay Eddie a visit after all.

\----

As it turned out, the kids were pretty hyped about Tiana even with the fact that she was a girl. Bill was pretty impressed by that - they were a mature bunch of twelve year olds, which was rare and lovely.

Eddie was standing in front of the door to her station in Princess Fairytale Hall with his arms crossed. He looked almost elf-like in the Fantasyland attendant costume, and Bill couldn’t help but wonder at Richie’s taste. Eddie was a good person and quite attractive in his civilian clothes, but he looked ridiculous in his Attendant get-up, and Bill was pretty sure Richie had never seen Eddie in civvies. It made Bill wonder if Richie lusted after the Peter Pans in Entertainment, too.

“How many?” Eddie asked as they drew nearer.

Bill smiled meekly. “Don’t kill me.”

Eddie’s shoulders slumped. “Over ten?”

“Fourteen,” Bill said apologetically. “Plus me.”

Eddie rolled his eyes and sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you knew Richie?” Bill asked, low enough that the kids and moms in his group couldn’t hear him.

Eddie’s breath caught in his throat, and his face immediately went pink. “You’re talking about Jungle Cruise guy, aren’t you.”

“Yeah. We’re old friends.” Bill looked at Eddie seriously. “Is he yanking your chain?”

“He’s so embarrassing,” Eddie complained. “Every time I’m with Aladdin and Jasmine, he stares at me from across Adventureland and shouts dumb jungle pick-up lines. And that’s not even the worst part.”

Bill blinked back at him. “What’s the worst part?”

“The worst part is that I’m _into it_ ,” Eddie hissed, blushing scarlet. “I don’t know what to do. It’s ridiculous. I have to go check on Tiana.” He disappeared into the next room, and then reappeared. “Yeah, she’s good. She’ll see you now.”

“Do you want me to talk to Richie?” Bill asked, gesturing the rest of his group forward.

“If you do, I’ll kill you,” Eddie threatened, pushing Bill through the door. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” Bill repeated, hiding a laugh behind his hand as he whisked the kids through and around to Tiana. Eddie continued to glare at him until the heavy double doors that opened into the depths of Princess Fairytale Hall slammed shut.

\----

The tour pretty quickly went back to occupying the majority of Bill’s thoughts, and so he was able to bring the kids and moms through Fantasyland pretty efficiently. The kids were obviously losing steam heading into Tomorrowland, so he talked to the moms and decided that Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear would be their two final stops of the day. Monsters Inc would have to wait for another time.

Bill wasn’t a huge roller-coaster guy, and Space Mountain was particularly iffy for him, especially after he’d gotten the opportunity to ride it with the lights on, so he elected to stay outside with some of the moms while the kids and the braver mothers went through the line. One of the mothers was clearly relieved to have gotten him alone, and immediately started flirting with him, which he hated. It happened all the time, and while it was definitely worse when wives flirted with him in front of their husbands, it sucked pretty much across the board. He had no real defense mechanisms: he couldn’t be rude to the guest, or he’d get fired, and he couldn’t tell them he was gay, because then they’d probably tell his supervisor and he’d get fired for sharing too much information. It was a lose-lose situation.

Fortunately, someone else had noticed his plight. A blonde, bearded man in a dress shirt and, bewilderingly, a Disney name tag, came walking towards him from the direction of Astro Orbiter. “Hey, um.” The man read Bill’s nametag, and then straightened up. “Bill. Can we chat for a sec?”

“Sure,” Bill said, pointing to him and mouthing ‘supervisor’ to the moms as he was led away.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Bill shoved his hands in his pockets. “Am I in trouble?”

“What?” The man seemed confused. “No, I was just trying to help you out. That mom was really laying it on thick.”

“Oh.” Bill couldn’t find the words to express his gratitude, so he settled for patting the man on the arm. “Thanks, man, I really appreciate it. I thought you were the manager for one of the attractions around here, that’s why I asked…”

The other man laughed. “Oh, no. Well, actually, kind of. In a sense.”

Bill knitted his eyebrows. “I don’t follow.”

“My name’s Ben Hanscom,” the man introduced himself. “I’m an Imagineer.”

“Oh!” Bill beamed, delighted. He'd never run into an Imagineer on property before - they were usually busy planning and building and generally improving the quality of the parks - and so it was really cool to actually run into one. “Freaking awesome, man. What brings you to MK? New developments in Tomorrowland?”

“Just observing,” Ben said, smiling. “I have a lot of Star Wars stuff on my plate, so I wanted to see how guests were reacting to the space-y theming we already have.”

“Smart,” Bill nodded. “What Star Wars stuff?”

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” Ben dropped his voice to a low whisper. Bill almost believed him for a hot second, but Ben ruined the joke by bursting out laughing.

“Dude. That wasn’t even that funny.”

“I know,” Ben wheezed. “I just can’t contain myself.”

“The rest of my group is coming back,” Bill said, pointing at the exit, where the kids were skipping out towards their mothers, “so as much as I’d like to listen to your crazy, I’ve gotta fly. See you around?”

“Definitely,” Ben said, smiling a huge, genuine smile. “Anytime you need to be rescued from crazy moms, you let me know.”

“I sure will,” Bill joked, walking back towards the kids.

“Hey,” Ben called after him, a little hesitantly.

Bill turned around. “Yes?”

“Could you, uh, say hello to the redheaded costumer next time you’re picking up costumes?” Ben asked sheepishly. “Tell her that Tomorrowland Pants Guy says hi.”

Bill had a feeling he knew exactly the person Ben was talking about, but there was no way Ben would know her name, so he decided to skip that particular discussion and just say “Okay”.

It was shaping up to be a weird day for relationships, all in all.

\----

The costumer in question happened to be none other than Bill’s best friend and roommate, Beverly.

Bill met Bev just a little while after he’d started working at Disney. She’d worked more on entertainment costumes then, and they’d bonded over their love of the Haunted Mansion attire. They’d dated in those first, more immediate weeks, but quickly realized that their relationship worked better on a platonic level (especially considering that Bill wasn’t super into women in the first place)...which, ultimately, led them all the way up to becoming roommates.

She still worked in costuming, but now, she was in charge of frontline cast costumes in the Magic Kingdom. She ran clothing maintenance and tracked down all checked-out costume pieces, and also had the well-deserved reputation of being the nicest girl in all of costuming. After Bill sent the kids off to their hotel, clocked out, and hopped the West Clock bus back to the station, he stopped in to see her, knowing that her shift would be finished soon.

“Please, please, please come to the Boardwalk with me for a while!” Bill found Bev almost immediately upon entering the Costuming building, and wasted no time in launching into a whiny beg.

Bev huffed. “Is this about that guy you saw feeding the birds there literally one time? With the pretty curls and the sneer?”

“Obviously.” Bill unbuttoned his vest, took it off, and stuffed it in his bag. “I’ve gotta find him.”

This was true. Bill had spent his last couple of weeks in pursuit of a man he’d seen on Disney’s Boardwalk some time ago. The man had been angelically beautiful, and despite seeming a little on the stiff side, had been sweet and wonderful to watch when he’d pulled out birdseed and started tossing it to the ibises. Bill had been entranced, and now he was obsessed with finding him again.

“He’s probably not even from around here,” Bev pointed out, disgustedly watching Bill strip to just his undershirt and a pair of running shorts.

“He is. I know he is.” Bill stuffed his work stuff in his backpack, and then zipped it up. “And there’s another guy I have my eye on, too, if we can swing into Epcot and stop by some KidCot stations.”

“KidCot?” Bev raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t ask,” Bill said, sliding his bag back on to his shoulders. KidCot Guy was beautiful, too, with pretty dark skin and expressive eyes. Bill had spotted him a week or so ago by the Canada pavilion and had been immediately enraptured.

Bill probably needed to work on falling in love a little less easily.

“Eh, I don’t have other plans.” Bev shrugged. “I guess I’ll come.”

“Fuck yeah,” Bill grinned. “My wingwoman.”

“Never say that again,” Bev said threateningly, and disappeared into the back to clock out.

\----

They drove over to the Boardwalk and parked in cast parking, despite the fact that they weren’t Boardwalk cast. Neither of them wanted to pay to park in a guest lot (it was stupid that that was even a thing, now), and Bev figured they’d get away with it, so they decided to make it work.

Curly-haired boy was not on the Yacht and Beach side of things, and Bill couldn’t see him across the way. That was discouraging, but he didn’t want to make Bev feel they’d come for nothing, so Bill suggested that they walk the loop for a minute.

“Oh, by the way,” he remembered somewhere over by the Abracadabar, “some guy told me to say hey to you. Something about Tomorrowland pants.”

Bev frowned. “I’m not friends with any Tomorrowland cast.”

“He wasn’t Tomorrowland cast,” Bill clarified, “he was an imagineer. Something about Star Wars….but then, I mean, I guess they’re all kinda doing Star Wars at this point.”

Bev thought for a moment, and then her eyes widened. “Oh, shoot, what was his name. He was so sweet. Uh. Bert? Starts with a ‘B’.”

“Ben,” Bill remembered, smiling at the memory of the bearded guy who laughed at himself. “Imagineer Ben.”

“Ben!” Bev’s face was alight with excitement. “SO cute. He came in to see what the Tomorrowland folks were wearing, and then he stuck around and talked to me about sewing and Disney’s Hercules. What a cool cat.”

“He’s got a little crush on you, I think,” Bill teased.

“I’ve got a little crush back,” Bev responded without missing a beat. “Shit, I’ll ask him out myself if I ever see him again. He was so much fun.”

“That’s a pretty big ‘if’,” Bill reminded her gently.

“Yeah.” Bev kicked at a rock as they passed ESPNZone. “For you, too, though. I notice we haven’t found your bird boy yet.”

Bill sighed, gazing sadly across the little man-made lake. The sun was setting on the far end, and it would have been almost perfectly picturesque if the giant statues from the Swan and Dolphin resorts hadn’t been silhouetted against the sky. “I just can’t shake the feeling that he’s still here somewhere, Bev. Like, the universe keeps bringing me back here to find him, and one of these days, he’s going to be sitting on the steps outside the Yacht Club with a little plastic bag of birdseed again.”

Bev gave him a pitying look. “Maybe, honey. Maybe. We’re by the side entrance to Epcot; do you wanna try and find Kidcot guy instead?”

Bill did also really want to try and find Kidcot guy, but he couldn’t give up on curly-haired bird boy so easily. “One more lap, okay?”

“Okay, sweetheart.” Bev was, as always, inhumanly patient, and took his hand as they started on their second loop.

There were more people out on the Boardwalk now than there were when Bev and Bill had first arrived. It appeared to be prime time for people to be leaving the parks and coming back to their hotels to swim or change for dinner.

“They seem nice,” Bev giggled, gesturing to a set of parents that were obviously minutes away from snapping and screaming at their children.

Bill groaned. “Bev, thank your lucky stars that you don’t have to deal with guests, ever.”

“I do,” she replied easily, “every day.”

A loud, officious voice cut through the crowd as they passed the Yacht and Beach pool and approached the entrance to the Yacht Club. Bill felt his face contort into a scowl as he looked for the perpetrator.

“Too loud, asshole, too loud,” he muttered, feeling like a crotchety Mansion cast member again.

“It’s not my fault I couldn’t change my shift, dickhead,” the voice snapped. “I’m sorry you had to work in the morning, but honestly--no, your normal shift is batshit crazy, who the fuck goes in to work at 2pm? And I don’t care that you didn’t get to see….whoever this kid is. Mine didn’t come today either. Bad day all around. ...what? Oh, go fuck yourself.”

As abruptly as it had began, the voice stopped. Bill assumed that he’d hung up on whoever he was talking to. Curious, he looked around, trying to find someone who both looked angry and was shoving their phone back in their pocket.

In the whole post-pool area, there was only one person who matched both of those descriptors.

He also happened to have amber, springy hair.

Bill stopped short.

“Are you okay?” Bev asked, having almost walked into him. “Is something…?” She followed Bill’s line of vision, and then gasped. “Oh my God. That’s him, isn’t it? Something’s telling me that that’s him.”

Bill nodded weakly, and before he knew it, Bev was dragging him towards the beautiful stranger.

“What the fuck, Bev?” Bill yanked back on his hand, but she was holding firm. “I’m not ready to talk to him! Let me g---”

The curly-haired boy looked up. He was a lot prettier up close - almost statuesque - and holding a bag full of clothes, this time, instead of a Ziploc full of birdseed.

He also, jarringly, did not look surprised to see Bill.

“Oh,” he said, looking Bill up and down. “It’s you.”

In later re-tellings of the story, Bill blamed his lack of sleep and his dizzying tour group for what happened next, but the truth of it was that the sheer shock of it all was far too much.

He passed out, right onto the Yacht Club steps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> irl Richie would have been fired from Jungle by now but we can sit here and pretend
> 
> *West Clock Bus - to preserve the integrity/secrecy of the tunnels, there is a bus that takes Cast Members from Magic Kingdom cast parking to the mouth of the tunnels. It is impossible to drive and stumble upon the tunnels.
> 
> **Getting a point - you clock in on a computer, so it knows you're late. lateness & other offenses of the like earn you points on your employee permanent record. 3 points earn you a talking to from a supervisor, more than that is Bad News
> 
> ***CP Shift - CP = college program. College kids do internships at WDW that are basically just slave labor (that's how I worked there!) & they give them all the late-night graveyard shifts.
> 
> ****Bote - that's just what they call boats at the World Famous Jungle Cruise. I genuinely don't know why.
> 
> *****Cross-train - as an attractions cast member, you can be trained at any attraction in your "zone" (so: Fantasyland, Adventureland/Liberty Square, in Epcot there's Future World East/West, etc.) but you have to apply to be trained, so...cross-training
> 
> ******Rotate - every 45 minutes, attractions cast members rotate positions. this is mostly to give CMs some time in the air conditioning
> 
> *******Frontline cast - the CMs you interact with when you go into the park. There are lots of others (coordinators, managers, costumers, etc.) that you don't see.
> 
> ********KidCot - stations for kids around Epcot Center's World Showcase
> 
> *********Yacht & Beach Club - two resorts in the Boardwalk area of WDW. you can walk to Epcot and boat to Studios from there.
> 
> **********"Friends" with a character - WDW lingo for acting as that character. EX: if I'm hanging out with my friend Elsa in Epcot's Norway pavilion today, then I'm gonna be the Elsa in Norway. Done to maintain the illusion with small children.
> 
> thanks for coming to my WDW ted talk, now enjoy some sad gays
> 
> comments make me feel all twitterpated inside...please come chat! alternatively: skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com


	2. "Almost There" (Mike)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Richie’s eyes flicked up to Mike for the first time. Mike sat awkwardly as Richie took him in, smiled, and said, 'A fucking pleasure. Has anyone ever told you that red’s your color?'
> 
> 'Just you,' Mike replied honestly.
> 
> 'Glad I could be your first.' Richie winked, and Mike felt charmed in spite of himself."

MIKE HANLON - KIDCOT STATION AT THE CANADA PAVILION, EPCOT CENTER  
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8TH  
6:55 P.M.

There were two hours and five minutes until the Epcot fireworks show began, signalling the imminent close of the park, which meant there were three hours and five minutes until Mike Hanlon could finally clock out. 

Not that he was counting, of course.

Sighing, he shifted in his seat at the Canada KidCot station. He’d been scheduled for an afternoon 8 hour shift, 11 to 7, but they’d asked for someone to extend because they were short-staffed and he apparently couldn’t help himself. He agreed to work until close, which was an extra three hours. Normally, he wouldn’t be phased by that, but he was bone tired today. He’d been up late with his Imagineer roommate, poring over plans and ideas for Star Wars.

He should have known better. No amount of arguing for Lando Calrissian or Finn was going to make Bob Iger, the CEO of the company, less racist, which meant that there was little to no hope for representation in the new Star Wars World. His roommate Ben had tried to warn him, but he’d pushed the issue anyway, feeling restless and irritated that he worked for a company that didn’t value people like him.

Now, he was paying the price. He stifled a yawn as a mother with two children hustled them by his table - he would kill for someone to actually talk to, but he wasn’t the type to hustle people over to him Gaston-style. (The Magic Kingdom Gaston was notorious for cat-calling girls, which Mike supposed was in character...but it was deeply unsettling to watch.) 

Sighing, Mike picked up a marker and began to color one of the Duffy drawings at his station. As bored as he was, he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Disney, for all its flaws, was more of a home for him than Canada had ever been, and KidCot was his favorite rotation. He loved telling stories and teaching kids about his home country - he loved _teaching_.

He loved Canada, too...it was his home, after all, but it had never been freeing for him like Florida had. Home came with expectations - from his peers, from his teachers, and most of all, from his parents. 

Mike loved his parents, but he was definitely not the son they needed. He had no interest in hanging around and taking over the farm. His dreams were bigger than that.

His parents, for their part, had totally supported his move...at their own expense. He felt guilty about that sometimes, but he had a feeling that all three of them knew, in their hearts, that it was the right choice for Mike to go.

He’d come to Disney World because he hadn’t known where else to go. Disney had a work program for international students that promised to give him opportunities to connect with people around the world, and that promise had really appealed to 21 year-old Mike Hanlon. It had been the right choice, definitely - his first three months at Star Tours had been like a dream. He got to talk Star Wars all day, he got to choose Rebel Spies, the ride wasn’t that complicated, and he hadn’t had to slog all the way around the perimeter of Hollywood Studios to get to his attraction like the Tower of Terror bellhops did. (There had to be a more efficient way of moving around backstage, and someday, Mike imagined they’d invent it, but for the time being, it was long walks and bikes over at Studios.) All in all, it had been a perfect fit for him.

Then, he had three months doing outdoor vending (ODV) at Studios, and that was...less exciting, to say the least. ODV was hot, sweaty work, and the guests that wanted popcorn or pretzels or light-up Mickey ears were usually tired, hungry, and cranky (and sometimes racist). Still, that was manageable, especially when he got into the groove of Fantasmic shifts. In fact, he still picked up Fantasmic shifts from time to time, for nostalgia’s sake.

After that, his program was over, but he didn’t feel ready to do something else, so he went to Casting to see about applying for a more regular job (and what he would have to do to renew his US work visa). The only full-time position they had to offer him was in the Canada Pavilion, so that’s where he was for the time being. It wasn’t ideal (he was putting in to transfer back to attractions as soon as he was able), but he’d gotten that temporary worker visa for it, so he had no choice but to make it work. So far, the only thing that had been completely ruined for him was Martin Short movies, because after watching the Martin Short ‘O Canada’ film a thousand and twelve times per work shift, he’d sooner die than watch _Three Amigos_ ever again in his life. (He considered himself extremely lucky to have found the roommate that he did via the CM Housing Facebook page, but if Ben put on _Father of the Bride_ one more time, Mike was going to kick him out immediately and permanently.)

Mike finished coloring his Duffy and looked around. There were no kids anywhere in sight. It was around dinner time, and the Canada pavilion wasn’t a highly popular family destination to begin with, so Mike was going to be alone for a long while, people-watching as young hipster couples walked by with Disney shopping bags full of maple syrup and plaid clothes.

He was so zoned out, he almost missed the two attractive men that were walking out of a shop and towards him.

Now, Mike had spent quite a bit of time coming to terms with his sexual identity. His father was extremely traditional - which was not to say close-minded, but there was just no opportunity for exploration on the farm. It wouldn’t have made sense.

Disney was on the extreme opposite end of that spectrum. A huge percentage of male Cast Members were gay, and for the first time, Mike had the opportunity to consider his own feelings.

As it turned out, he was pretty equally interested in men and women. He’d had a couple of short relationships during his time in the States with people of both genders, and they’d all been pretty nice...just, not lasting, and none of the people he had dated had been as compelling as the two men - a redhead and a boy with light brown curls, he could see now - that were walking his way.

It was a bit disconcerting, actually. Mike usually wasn’t attracted to white people (they were so entitled and pasty), but there was something almost cosmic about these two. It felt like the universe calling.

Before they got close enough to see him, Light Brown Curls stopped and turned to the redhead, holding up a Disney bag and smirking. The redhead blushed and grabbed for the bag, but Curls swiftly moved it behind his back. They began to engage in a game of keep-away. Mike was mesmerized.

“You trying to stamp their passports?” Mike jumped at the sound of a leering female voice, and almost fell out of his chair. “If you know what I mean?”

“Ma’am, I---” he began, turning to look at the perpetrator and stopping short when he saw her pretty green eyes. “Huh?”

She laughed loudly. “The ginger making an idiot of himself is named Bill. He works Guest Relations over at MK, and he’s been super hung up on these two guys he saw in passing in the Boardwalk slash Epcot area recently. Classic Denbrough. Tunnel-vision until he gets what he wants.”

Mike looked back over at the two men. The ginger (Bill) had retrieved his bag, and was waving it in front of Curls’ face. Curls seemed unimpressed.

“Is the skinny brunette boy one of the guys Bill was pining over?” Mike guessed, watching the bounce of the haughty man’s curls.

“Yep,” said the girl, joining Mike in looking over. “His name’s Stan, apparently. He’s a front desk coordinator over at Yacht, because of course he is. Everyone at Yacht is so fucking put together. Pardon my French.”

“It’s a relief to hear cursing every once in a while,” Mike admitted. “It can’t be princesses and rainbows all the time.”

The girl nodded appreciatively. “I like your style. I’m Beverly. I work in costuming over at MK.”

“Oh, word.” Mike stuck out a hand for her to shake. She took it, and he was immediately impressed by the subtle strength in her grip. “I’m Mike. You wanna learn about Canada?”

“At some point,” Beverly said, smiling amusedly. “Right now, though, I’m trying to play matchmaker.”

Mike squinted at her, confused. “Aren’t your friends already together, though? I thought you were just third-wheeling.”

“Fourth-wheeling, if all goes to plan.” Beverly winked. “Weren’t you wondering who else Bill has a crush on around here? I did say that he was pining over _two_ guys.”

Mike’s stomach lurched. Pretty boys weren’t generally in the business of looking Mike Hanlon’s way...unless he was reading the whole thing wrong?

“No, but there’s already...they’re already….” Mike protested weakly, hoping his assumptions were correct. “I couldn’t intrude.”

Beverly shrugged her freckled shoulders, looking down nonchalantly. “Two’s an arbitrary number, bud. You can do whatever you want.”

The boys’ eyes were on Mike, now - they must have noticed him talking to their friend. The redhead was smiling, and Mike suddenly felt hot.

Being with more than one person at a time had never occurred to Mike, but now that the idea had been planted, it was taking root in a really fast and embarrassing way.

“Bill, Stan,” Beverly called, beaming, “meet my new friend Mike. He’s from Canada.”

Feeling a little stupid, Mike gestured to his nametag. “Saskatchewan.”

“Mike from Saskatchewan.” Stan stepped forward, confident and smooth. “Very, very nice to meet you.”

Bill smiled knowingly. “Told you, didn’t I?”

“You were right,” Stan said, eyes never leaving Mike.

Mike looked between the two, hoping for an explanation, and Bill promptly provided him with one. “I saw you here the other day, talking to kids. You’ve got incredible charisma.”

Mike was painfully cognizant of the blood rushing to his cheeks. “Thanks. Uh. Bev says you guys are CMs, too?”

“Yep!” Bill tapped his chest where his name tag would be if he were in costume. “I’m in the Magic Kingdom, and Stan’s your neighbor over at the Yacht Club.”

“It’s a shame you don’t have any guests,” said Stan, examining the Duffy coloring pages at Mike’s table. “I don’t know why people aren’t flocking to you, honestly. You seem like the kind of person that I’d actually enjoy learning about Canada from.”

“Do you wanna hear some facts?” Mike asked, and then immediately cringed. _Why couldn’t he say something compelling for once?_

Fortunately, Bill and Stan seemed to find it endearing rather than weird. Stan opened his mouth to speak again…

...and was immediately interrupted by a freckly, frizzy-haired tornado of a human being, who swept in and slung his absurdly long arms over Bill and Stan’s shoulders. Mike blinked rapidly, trying to take stock of the situation, but before he could get his bearings, the new person adjusted his glasses and started speaking in a thick Russian accent.

“Eet eez veddy hahd, Comrade, for me to trahhck you eef you do not answer calls, da?” He was talking to Stan, but Bill seemed to recognize him, too, if his eye roll was any indication.

“Why the fuck did you need to find me at all?” Stan groaned. It was obvious that he was fond of this weird, lanky guy, but he was playing at irritation. “I turned off my phone for a reason, you nerd. Take a hint.”

“Eh, I was bored. Also kinda sad, thanks to Big Bill here.” The guy abruptly stopped with the accent, turned to Bill, and tutted loudly. “Can you believe that Bill stood in the way of true love today? Also, interesting that you two know each other and didn't think to fucking _tell me_. It's fine, I love being excluded, but--”

“We’ve literally just met,” Stan said, “and preventing you from feeling love is only serving to make him more attractive to me, so by all means, Bill, continue.”

“It’s not up to me,” Bill said sadly, “and tragically, Eddie is kind of into whatever messy flirting is going down on that end.”

The third guy inhaled sharply. “Hold on, say that last bit again.”

“Mike, this is Richie.” Bill ignored Richie’s request and turned to Mike. “He’s bad, sorry.”

Richie’s eyes flicked up to Mike for the first time. Mike sat awkwardly as Richie took him in, smiled, and said, “A fucking pleasure. Has anyone ever told you that red’s your color?”

“Just you,” Mike replied honestly.

“Glad I could be your first.” Richie winked, and Mike felt charmed in spite of himself.

“Okay, so how do we all know each other again?” Bev asked, frowning. “I know Rich because he’s a giant pain in my ass when he comes through costuming, I know Bill because I know Bill, and now I know Stan and Mike through Bill…”

“Richie’s my roommate,” Stan said flatly. “Unfortunately.”

Bill whipped around to stare accusingly at Richie. “You’ve been keeping that from me?”

“Hey, I didn’t know you were into stuck-up assholes,” Richie shrugged. “Besides, that’s justice in action for not giving Cute Character Attendant Eddie my number.”

“He was working,” Bill said defensively.

 _“He was working,”_ Richie parroted mockingly. “That’s never stopped me from hitting on him before, and it won’t stop me again.”

“I wouldn't,” Bill warned. “Eddie’s no joke.”

“Didn’t say he was,” Richie agreed, bouncing excitedly. “Can you tell me more about the 'into it' thing you were starting on before, though, because--”

“Where do you work, Richie?” Mike asked, trying to save Bill from the conversation.

Richie’s smile was huge and sweet. “The World Famous Jungle Cruise, of course! Why, you itchin’ to ride my bote?” His expression turned suggestive. “Because I’d let you. It’d be worth the long, painful death Stan and Bill would put me through--”

“Beep beep, Richie,” Bill said loudly, elbowing Richie hard in the gut. Richie doubled over on to the damp wood of the pavilion floor.

Stan quirked an eyebrow, obviously impressed. “Beep beep, huh? I’ll have to remember that for next time.” He brushed Bill’s arm with his hand as he said it, and the corner of Bill’s mouth twitched up. Mike was enamoured by the interaction, and wanted more than anything to be on the other side of the table, included in whatever it was they had going on…

...fuck, he was so fucking fucked.

“Richie, if you’re not here for any real reason, then you should come with me,” said Beverly, looking like she was already regretting her offer. “I was gonna ditch these three in a couple of minutes, anyway. Let ‘em have a Food and Wine date, or something.”

“You’re sweet, dahhhhlin'.” Richie gave her a sappy look as he peeled himself off of the floor. “Askin’ me out. Adorable. Unfortunately, I’m gonna have to pass, because Bill, I’m not going anywhere until you promise to get me Cute Eddie’s number.”

“You’re really dedicated to that, huh?” Bill asked, tone halfway between ‘impressed’ and ‘alarmed’. “What the hell happened between you two to make you so frigging obsessed, Rich? Normally you’re all jokes and no follow-through.”

Bill had obviously touched a nerve with that. Mike could see a bit of red creeping up Richie's neck under the collar of his shitty Toy Story t-shirt. There was silence for a moment, and then when Richie spoke, his voice was soft. “He’s just...I don’t….he’s all the stuff I like, you know?”

Mike looked at Bill, whose forehead was scrunched up in obvious concern at Richie’s words, and then at Stan, who had his hands delicately on his hips and was trying and failing to not seem affected, and understood that he, Mike Hanlon, knew exactly what Richie was talking about.

“Let’s talk more about this later,” Bill finally suggested after a long moment. “Okay?”

Richie nodded quietly. Something had happened in the last few minutes...it was like someone had toggled the Richie off-switch. Mike hoped it wasn’t something he had said. “Roger that, Billiam.”

“Hey,” Mike said, feeling suddenly bold in the wake of Richie’s vulnerability. “Listen. I can’t hang with you all now, because I won’t be off of work until 22:00. If you guys are free and still awake at that point, though, y’all can come to my place after I’m done. I can write down an address. I bet my roommate won’t mind.”

Bill’s responding smile could have lit up the whole park. “I’d love that.”

“Me too,” Stan said immediately, looking between Bill and Mike with a soft expression (well, soft for Stan the consummate professional, anyway).

“You want us there, too?” Richie asked cautiously.

Mike nodded, and was relieved to note that Stan and Bill were nodding too. “Dude, I could really use some friends. I’m fresh out of those.”

With that, the tension was broken. Richie let out a great howling laugh, and moved over to clap Mike on the back. “Oh, Mikey! You just hit the friend jackpot, my man. Just ask Stanley Uris! Richie Tozier’s a top notch amigo.”

Stan shrugged listlessly. “I mean, if you like people that try to give you sloppy handies every time they’re intoxicated.”

Richie’s expression twisted up, and for a split second, Mike thought he was gonna lose it, but then instead of yelling, Richie pointed accusingly at Stan. “They’re not sloppy, Stanley, Jesus Christ.”

“Jesus who?” Stan asked, reaching out to yank on Richie’s sleeve, which presumably was meant to signal that he was kidding. “Anyways, yes, the three of us will be there, Mike. Bev?”

“That depends,” she said slyly. “Is your roomie hot, Mikey?”

Mike couldn’t help but laugh at that. Ben was an objectively handsome man, but he was less sexy than he was warm and comforting. “He’s a beautiful, wonderful guy, Beverly.”

“Then of course,” she agreed, laughing her little laugh again. “Write your address on the back of one of these Duffys, yeah?”

Mike obliged her, and when he was done, Stan took the paper and folded it up neatly, ultimately placing it in the breast pocket of his shirt.

“All right,” Richie announced. “Parting is such sweet sorrow, Micycle, but we must go purchase overpriced cocktails now. Adieu.”

“Bye!” Bev called, and almost immediately, the two of them were off, merrily making their way to the main World Showcase walkway.

Stan and Bill lingered for another moment. They were both looking at Mike with expressions that made Mike feel like his stomach was going to explode with butterflies. He didn’t know what it was about these two that made him feel all of 17 again, but he wasn’t complaining. He hadn’t been this excited about romance since middle school.

“We’ll see you later, okay?” Stan said assuringly. He slid his hand into Bill’s after he spoke, and Mike watched their fingers entwine. Absurdly, he wasn’t jealous at all...any interaction at all between the three of them felt right and good.

“Have a nice couple of hours,” Mike said, trying to convey the giddiness he was feeling through his words. “Enjoy the fireworks!”

“It’ll be nicer when we’re all together,” Bill said meaningfully, and then he and Stan were disappearing into the throng, too.

It looked like it was going to be another late night for Mike Hanlon...but somehow, he didn’t think he was going to regret this one tomorrow.

One hour and three minutes until park close, two hours and three minutes until clock-out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we don't deserve Mike Hanlon
> 
> *Duffy is Mickey's teddy bear, apparently. He's very popular in Japan. You used to be able to go to a Duffy meet and greet in Epcot, which is fucking wild. 
> 
> **There's a moment in the Star Tours ride where one guest on that particular simulator is identified as a "Rebel Spy". The cast members get to pick that guest. I have never been that guest, and I will be bitter about that until my dying day.
> 
> come critique my prose/discuss Epcot with me in the comments or at skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com


	3. "You've Got a Friend In Me" (Bev)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Stan, you know it’s different with you,” Richie said, tone verging on guilty, “but you and I do well because we give each other space, you know? Same with me and my parents. Went and Mags trust me to do stuff for myself, and it works out.”
> 
> “But sometimes it’s nice to have some contact,” Bev interjected, trying not to look at Ben while she said it. “Sometimes it’s nice to have someone be specifically sweet to you.”
> 
> She broke and looked at Ben as she finished the sentence. He was looking back with a serious and open expression on his face, and he smiled when she caught his eyes. It made her shiver involuntarily.
> 
> “Exactly,” Richie finished, looking back over at Stan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today in: absolutely no plot, just cute Losers banter

**BEVERLY MARSH - COSTUMES, MAGIC KINGDOM, but more immediately, THE LIVING ROOM IN MIKE HANLON AND BEN HANSCOM’S APARTMENT**  
**THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8TH**  
**11:00 P.M.**

“Never have I ever,” Beverly Marsh began, swirling the wine around in her glass, “had sex on property while I was at work.”

Bill drank immediately, flipping her off as he tilted his beer back to take a long swig. Mike and Ben looked quickly at each other, and then back at their drinks, but neither did anything to suggest that they were going to reach for their cups...and Richie was also surprisingly still. Stan, however, had twitchy fingers.

“Does it count if it happens offstage and it’s during your break?” he asked, frowning as he tapped against the wood of the coffee table.

“Yes,” Bev confirmed, and Stan scowled and picked up his drink begrudgingly. Richie immediately began cackling.

“Getting dicked down in the coat closet, Stanny?” he leered, scootching sideways towards a side table to make himself another rum and coke.

“At least I’m getting dicked down at all,” Stan replied calmly. “And for your information, it was in a bedroom. Perks of hotel work.”

“Hmm, sensual. And yours, Big Bill? I assume that was what your partner was calling you, by the way,” Richie continued. Bev noted with some interest that drunk Richie was not dissimilar to sober Richie.

“Upstairs at the Haunted Mansion,” Bill mumbled, flushing red. Bev snorted at that. Bill had gone through a string of hookups after they’d broken up in an attempt to figure out how gay he actually was, and most of those hookups had been...bizarre, to say the least.

“There’s an upstairs?” Mike asked, surprised. Ben nodded, lighting up a little bit.

“Can I explain this part?” he asked, and it was hardly anything, just a boring question, but Bev was practically vibrating over it.

She’d been thinking about Ben Hanscom for weeks, now - ever since he’d swept into costuming and inadvertently charmed the bejeezus out of her. Disney straight guys were few and far between, and most of them were grade-A assholes (kind of like her father, but that didn’t bear thinking about). Bev had dated enough of them to know that it was usually not a great idea to get yourself involved with a fellow CM, especially if you’d already had traumatic experiences with that type of guy.

Ben, in waltzing in, had turned all of that on its head.

He’d caught her eye immediately upon walking in. Bev’s work largely had to do with the way people carried themselves, so she liked to think she was pretty good at reading personalities through movement and posture. Ben led with his head, which suggested that he was more confident in his thoughts than he was about his looks. In fact, his loose shirt and his embarrassment around some of the more form-fitting male costumes made it subtly clear that he really had no idea that he was handsome at all. He was such a far cry from the pelvis-leading narcissists she was usually forced to interact with that she was almost too shy to talk to him. She’d hidden behind racks for a full three minutes, debating whether or not she should go say hi.

She was so glad she had made the choice to suck it up and greet him. It had been so long since she’d had an intellectually stimulating conversation with someone that wasn’t Bill - and Ben was actually more attuned to her interests than Bill ever was. (She loved Bill Denbrough, but sometimes he wasn’t a very good listener.) They’d talked about everything and nothing for forty minutes (easily the fastest forty minutes she’d ever had at work), and it had killed her to say goodbye to him, especially knowing she might never see him again. For weeks, she’d been entertaining the fantasy of him coming back to visit her, to the point where she couldn’t even remember what her daydreams had consisted of before.

Seeing him in the doorway of Mike Hanlon’s apartment was the most pleasant surprise she’d probably ever had in her life. She was starting to think that there was something magic about this day - that the company she was in was somehow preordained.

Or, maybe she was just drunk. Either way, she was happy.

“Go ahead, Ben.” Bill knocked her out of her reverie, speaking fast in an attempt to push attention away from himself. Bev didn’t know why he bothered. He was in the company of two people that he was probably going to hook up with later; he had to assume that they’d want the details of the Mansion tryst.

“When they built the Mansion back in the late 60s, they didn’t anticipate Mansion CMs being able to leave for long enough to get to the bathrooms in the tunnels and back,” Ben began, excitement obvious in the wide, swinging gestures of his arms, “because Mansion’s on the outskirts and not technically connected in. Mansion CMs don’t actually have to use the tunnels at all if they so choose...isn’t that right, Bill?”

Bill was obviously not looking to be called upon. “Um. Yeah, I guess. You can just veer out to the right when you reach the mouth of the tunnels. Mansion’s the big green building that’s next to Small World.”

“Right. So,” Ben said, clapping his hands together for emphasis, “the Imagineers planned in a bathroom and changing area. It’s on the left when you walk down the entry hall. I believe it’s mostly used for storage, now...and that’s also where the makeup artists work on Mansion CMs during Halloween parties.”

Richie nodded, processing. “So... _Bill_ got dicked down in a closet.”

Bill rolled his eyes and sank back in his seat. “Other way around, jackass.”

Stan and Mike both fidgeted in their seats at that. Bev would have rolled her eyes, except that she was preoccupied with watching the way Ben’s thumb was swiping over the top of his beer bottle.

How was she going to get him alone…?

“Bill, it’s your turn,” Ben reminded him, obviously trying to shut down whatever sexual understanding Bill, Mike, and Stan were coming to.

“Right.” Bill massaged his face with his fingers. “Okay, never have I ever….hit on anyone using Disney puns.”

“That was targeted and cruel,” Richie said without any real heat, downing half of his rum and coke in one swallow.

“Rub my lamp?” Mike guessed, smiling a small smile and sipping his wine.

“Invade my castle, charm my snake, kiss me to wake me up, you’ve seen Pride Rock, now check out something even harder and more phallic,” Stan listed, the corners of his mouth tugging up in spite of himself, “and notably, when he was at Pirates, plunder my treasure.”

“Well, I go into more detail than _that_ ,” Richie said, mifffed.

“Too bad Eddie’s not here for us to ask,” Bill said, shaking his head in mock-sadness. “You’ve gotta think of some smoother moves for him, man. He’s picking up what you’re putting down right now, but your competition is stiff. I’ve seen shit go down in the locker rooms - all the guys that are friends with princes are super, super whipped for him.”

Richie noticeably paled at that, but did not respond - instead, he opted to finish the rest of his rum and coke.

“You’ll be okay, Rich,” Bev reassured him, scooting forward enough in her chair to pat him lightly on the back. “He complains about those guys every time he comes to costuming. Apparently they’re all narcissistic and stereotypically hypersexual... and I mean, who would have guessed.”

Stan was the first one to laugh at that, which led Bev to believe that it wasn’t a very good joke (Stan had proven, over the course of the night, to have an absolutely bizarre sense of humor), but then Mike joined in, and Bill and Ben, and eventually, Richie joined them all in a collective, cleansing giggle fit.

When the cacophony died down, Bev continued. “Seriously, dude, if Eddie wanted a prince, he’d have one by now. Obviously he’s looking for something specific. How did you two meet, anyway?”

“In Adventureland, right?” Bill asked. “He was working the Pan meet and greet for a while, with some Aladdin and Jasmine thrown in. He was so happy that he got taken off of Pan when the meet and greet spot moved. He got forced into taking so many pictures with teen girls that mistook him for the real deal.”

Richie winced. “Really? The Pans in Entertainment aren’t half as cute as him. Fucking self-obsessed maniacs.” Stan rolled his eyes at that, and Richie made a face back at him. “What, Stan, does that remind you of someone? You're so fucking vain about your weird elfin bone structure, Jeeee-zus. But anyways, to answer your question, I met him in the tunnels.”

“Locker room?” Ben guessed, genuinely interested. 

“Near the break room that’s out towards Adventureland,” Richie corrected him, “the one that Pirates cast is basically forced to use because the ride is so fucking far away from literally everything. I guess he was with Aladdin and company that day.”

“Let me guess,” Bill said, exchanging a knowing look with Stan (and it was incredible, Bev thought, that they’d known each other for so little time and yet were already so comfortable with one another), “you made a joke about your dick.”

“I was trying to get my hand to stop bleeding, actually,” Richie said brightly, “but close.”

“Oh, yeah.” That detail brought Stan back into the conversation. “You fucked it up trying to help a guest with an ECV, right? And when you came home with it, I was impressed with how well you bandaged it…”

“...and I told you I didn’t do it,” Richie finished, nodding. “Eddie did. He saw that I was struggling, came over, and quietly walked me through how to wrap it properly like a literal angel on Earth. If not for him, I’d have been put on modified duty, so you can say that he pretty literally saved my life.” Richie paused, looking down into his empty glass. “It stuck in my mind, what he did for me. No one does that shit for me.”

Stan cleared his throat, and Richie jerked back. He looked up at Stan apologetically, and for whatever reason, Bev suddenly felt like she was intruding on an intimate moment.

“Stan, you know it’s different with you,” Richie said, tone verging on guilty, “but you and I do well because we give each other space, you know? Same with me and my parents. Went and Mags trust me to do stuff for myself, and it works out.”

“But sometimes it’s nice to have some contact,” Bev interjected, trying not to look at Ben while she said it. “Sometimes it’s nice to have someone be specifically sweet to you.”

She broke and glanced over at Ben as she finished the sentence. He was looking back with a serious and open expression on his face, and he smiled when she caught his eyes. It made her feel a little bit like her chest cavity was open and her organs were on display for the whole room to see...which was graphic, but pretty par for the 'three drinks in' course.

“Exactly,” Richie finished, looking back over at Stan. “So…”

Stan put his hand on Richie’s forearm reassuringly. “I get it, dumbass. We’re friends. Eddie’s a crush. You don’t treat your friends the same way you treat your crush. Don’t feel bad about this. Would it help you feel better if I said something embarrassing about you?”

Richie laughed lowly, but his eyes betrayed some hesitancy. “No, but you’re about to do it anyway.”

“Richie hasn’t had sex in almost two years,” Stan announced triumphantly, and Bill almost spit out his drink.

“What the fuck, Richard?” Bill spluttered. “I’ve known you for almost that long, and I don’t think we’ve had a single conversation where your dick wasn’t mentioned at least once--”

Richie groaned by way of response, and pushed his way up off of the couch. “Party over. Stan ruined it.”

“Is everything okay?” Mike asked, concerned. “Not having sex is fine, dude, I do it all the time.”

“Same,” Ben chorused, and Beverly inhaled sharply. There was something attractive about his casual admittance of abstinence, even though it was clear they were on very different pages with that.

Richie shrugged helplessly. “Forgive a guy for wanting feelings to be involved. Jeez.”

“Richie, you’re among friends,” Bev reminded him, almost laughing at the thought. This morning, she would have considered Richie an acquaintance at best and an annoyance at worst, but now...everything was different, in the span of just a few hours. It was bizarre, but good...or at least, it felt like it was going to be good. “We like you no matter who you’re screwing.”

Richie’s expression brightened at that, and Bev realized her mistake too late. “Even if that person is your mom, Bev?”

“Next time you check out, I’m going to make you go back and take the khaki pants option instead of the shorts,” she threatened.

“What?” Richie put his hands on his hips and exaggeratedly made a surprised face. “You don’t like my kneecaps? They’re my best feature!”

“Stop wearing shorts in January,” she said loudly. “Only fuckboys wear shorts in January.”

“I’m just trying to keep people off of my scent,” Richie defended, “I don’t want them knowing that I’m soft.”

“Too late,” Bill said, laughing lightly, “that’s the number one story I’m telling on all of my tours now.”

Stan and Mike beamed over at him. “I knew I liked you,” Stan said, running his fingers over Bill’s forearm lightly. On Bill’s other side, Mike had reached over to touch his shoulder, and was sweetly rubbing circles into it with his thumb.”

Richie watched them for a moment, expression unreadable. “Well,” he finally said, “I’m sure I’ll find this on PornHub later, so I’ll wait and catch it then. Adieu.”

“Are you good to drive?” Ben asked, standing up.

Richie shrugged. “What is _good_ , anyway, Benjamin. What does it mean.”

Ben shook his head. “I’ll drive. I assume you took your own car?” 

“Negative,” Richie said, sweeping his arm around to point at Stan, whose fingers had made the trek over to Mike’s forearms and showed no signs of stopping. “Stan the Man brought me.”

“I drove myself,” Bev volunteered, wanting to draw Ben’s attention back to her. “I can drive him.”

“You had three glasses of wine,” Ben said lightly, shaking his head. She stared back at him. Had he been counting…? “We’ll take your car, but I’ll drive, okay?”

She was struck with the sudden realization that this meant she’d have more time to talk to him, and she nodded furiously. “Okay.”

“Adios, caballeros,” Richie called in a horrifying Spanish accent. “Ay-yi-yi!” He began walking wobbily towards the front door with both middle fingers up. “Don’t bring STDs back to the apartment, Stanny!”

“STDs aren’t transmitted through the air, dumbass,” Stan called back, diverting his attention from Mike and Bill for long enough to flip Richie off in return.

“Yeah, bye,” Bev said, watching the three of them in amusement. “Make sure to ask Bill about the Haunted Mansion story again.”

“I’m more interested to see a picture of Bill in the Haunted Mansion costume,” Mike admitted, blushing, and Bev cackled.

“That’s our cue, Sir Hanscom,” she said, tugging at his sleeve lightly. “Let’s leave them to it.”

“Don’t do anything in my room,” Ben said pleadingly, and at that, they turned and followed Richie out into the night.

She didn’t really get to talk to Ben on the way to Richie’s apartment, because Richie had called shotgun and spent the whole ride loudly singing what he remembered of the Tiki Bird song (which wasn’t much except the obnoxious “Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room” chorus) and asking Ben questions about how much Boba Fett stuff was going to be in the new Star Wars land. Ben, of course, couldn’t reveal anything about his work, but Richie was inhumanly determined to know about Boba Fett, for whatever reason. Fortunately, Ben seemed to find it funny. 

Also fortunate was the fact that Richie and Stan didn’t live very far from Mike and Ben. Stan and Mike would surely use that to their advantage, but Bill was going to have to do a little driving. Served him right, though, Bev thought, for all of the times that he’d made Bev drive over to his place back in the day.

“Ben Handsome, you’re a saint,” Richie said as they pulled up in front of his apartment. “Next time you’re in the Jungle, come ride my bote. It’ll be a long, hard experience, but I’m sure you can take it.” Richie winked, unbuckled his seatbelt, and climbed out. “See you at checkout, Bev baby.”

“Return your goddamn costumes, Richie,” she shot back, “preferably on time next go-around.”

Richie gave a little salute, and stepped backwards. Ben called out after him.

“You gonna be all right, dude? I feel like we weren’t very nice to you tonight.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Richie stepped back up, obviously surprised. “What do you mean?”

“We kind of gave you a hard time, didn’t we?” Ben asked, and Bev felt warm at the concern in his tone.

Richie shook his head, smiling slowly. “Buddy, people are usually way, way meaner than that to ol’ Dick Tozier. I thought you guys were great.”

“You shouldn’t let people be mean to you,” Ben said softly. Richie barked out a laugh, but it was obvious that he was affected by Ben’s words.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, reaching in his pocket for his keys. “Hasta luego.”

“Bye, Richie,” Ben and Bev called in unison, and together, they watched Richie go up the steps and unlock his apartment door to make sure he got in all right. Once he was safely inside, Bev climbed over the center console and into the front seat.

“We’re heading to Celebration next,” she told him, and he put the car into drive.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Neither of them, apparently, had any idea what to say.

“Have you worked here long?” Ben finally asked, a little shaky.

“About two years,” she said, “I started around when Bill and Richie did. You?”

“Four-ish,” he replied, smiling a little. “I figured it was the coolest thing I could probably do with my engineering degree.”

“I’ll say,” she laughed. “Where were you before?”

“Georgia. I went to The University of Georgia.” He tapped lightly on the steering wheel. “Go Bulldogs.”

She stared back at him. “Was that a sports reference?”

Two little spots of red appeared on his cheeks. “Uh. Yeah. Forget it. Anyways, I’ve always been a little sad to not be a cast member that gets a costume. What you do is totally awesome.”

“You could come by and try some on,” she suggested, flirting a little. “A little fashion show, maybe?”

The red expanded, and was now covering most of his face. “Ohh, no, you don’t want that. Besides, I don’t even know what size I am anymore.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I...um.” His voice was suddenly very small. “I’ve lost a lot of weight over the past few years. It’s been sort of a goal of mine - I used to be huge. I’m still not where I want to be, but--”

“You look great,” Bev cut in, heart reeling at his admission. No wonder he’d looked so uncomfortable that day in the costume building. She’d heard it from so many CMs she'd helped outfit over the past two years - that no matter how much weight you lost, you never shook your former image of yourself.

She knew a little bit what that was like - to be trapped in your own body.

The red was creeping down Ben’s neck, now. “You really don’t have to say that.”

“You do,” she insisted, “and I bet you looked great then, too. I’d have asked you to dinner either way.”

“Thank you,” he said, obviously mortified. They were somehow already pulling into her apartment complex, much to her dismay, but even with the time crunch, she didn’t point out the rest of her sentence - just waited, and let him get it on his own.

It took him another thirty seconds to process exactly what she’d told him, and when he did, he just about crashed the car.

“You’re asking me to dinner?” he said disbelievingly. “You? Asking me?”

“Girls can ask too, Ben,” she teased, “get with the times.”

“No, I mean...you’re so…” Ben pulled over, put the car in park and buried his face in his hands. “You know what I mean.”

“You, too,” Bev whispered, putting her hand on his arm. “You’re _so_ , too.”

“I just…” Ben trailed off helplessly. “Yes, of course, yes. Can I take you to Ohana?”

Bev felt like her heart was going a thousand miles an hour. How had he known what her favorite restaurant on property was? Was he magic??

“Please,” she managed. “Can we try and get reservations soon?”

“I’m on it,” he promised.

“And we’ll split the bill,” she continued insistently.

“We’ll see about that.” Ben put the car in drive again, and they continued the rest of the 500 feet to her apartment. He parked in one of the spaces out front, and then turned to face her. “This might be the best night of my life to date, you know that?”

“Until you get back to the boys at your place,” Bev reminded him cheekily.

Ben groaned and rested his forehead on the top of the steering wheel. “Oh, fuck. I forgot about that. I wish I had noise cancelling headphones.”

An idea popped into Bev’s head, and before she could stop herself, she was blurting it out. “What if you stayed here?”

Ben slowly lifted his head back up. “Pardon?”

“Bill’s bed will be empty,” she said, feeling her face go hot, “or you can take the couch, but…”

Ben’s expression was twisted up in disbelief. “You sure?”

Beverly inhaled deeply, exhaled, and nodded. “I’m sure.” She unbuckled her seatbelt, opened her car door, stepped out, and gestured for Ben to do the same. “Come upstairs, Ben Hanscom.”

“With pleasure, Beverly Marsh,” he said, and Bev smiled a smile that she felt all the way to her core.

If this wasn’t destiny, it was at the very least good luck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Benverly? you mean My Whole Heart?
> 
> *ECV - Electronic Convenience Vehicle. the motorized scooters, essentially. heel-crushing, flesh ripping menaces.
> 
> **modified duty - menial tasks that you have to do until you're not hurt any more. tedious and annoying. 
> 
> constructive criticism always welcome! hit up the comments or skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com :)


	4. "When Can I See You Again?" (Eddie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "God, Eddie wished he were good at being soft with people. Growing up with his mother had made him so fucking defensive. At work, that was usually a good thing, but socially…"

**EDDIE KASPBRAK - COSTUME ATTENDANT, currently at CLUB VILLAIN at MICKEY’S NOT SO SCARY HALLOWEEN PARTY at the MAGIC KINGDOM**  
**SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17th**  
**7:15 P.M.**

At this point, it was safe to say that Eddie Kaspbrak had seen it all.

The first nineteen years of his life had been pretty nondescript, but he’d seen enough in that time to know that he belonged anywhere, anywhere, ANYWHERE that wasn’t Ohio. Ohio was football games he didn’t like and keggers where no one paid attention to him; was taking two bites of an Arby’s roast beef sandwich (fast food or chain restaurants, again, ALWAYS) and then smuggling the rest into the trash before his mother could see and start screeching.

Ohio was his mother, and all that that entailed - the manipulation, the fake illnesses, the hiding and shame around his sexuality, the community college that he’d been forced to attend so that she could continue to keep an eye on him. He didn’t want to be the person that he was in Ohio (the person that he was with her) so at the ripe old age of nineteen-and-a-half, he applied for the Disney College Program.

It seemed worth a shot. Disney was all-American and saccharine sweet enough to appease Sonia to the point where she’d let him go. It hadn’t been without a fight, though.

“Imagine the GERMS, Eddie-bear!” she’d insisted, anxiously digging the Purell out of her bag in a seeming attempt to keep foreign pathogens off of his body before he’d even left her house. “Those Brazilian tourists have all kinds of horrible tropical diseases. You’re better off with me.”

He’d done some research, and after two solid weeks of panic attacks as he combed through WebMD, he presented her with a binder.

“To show you,” he explained, “that I wouldn’t die in Florida.”

Sonia was not an easy woman to influence, but in the face of printouts from the most paranoid part of the internet, she found that she had very little to say. She’d given him her begrudging approval a week later.

In the three years he’d been in Florida (he was full-time cast now, having elected to not return to school in favor of continuing to live as far away from Sonia as possible), he was exposed to a never ending parade of seriously bizarre shit.

He’d seen Elsa smoking backstage with a helmetless Darth Vader more times than he could count over at Hollywood Studios. He’d seen middle aged dads freak the FUCK out over characters like Mushu; he’d seen kids pee on a trillion different non-toilet items. He’d been approached by giggling teen girls for the first time in his life (they’d all steered clear of him in high school...getting bullied for being weak and girly wasn’t exactly an attractive quality). They’d all thought he was Peter Pan, and he’d scowled and sent them on their way, hoping that he didn’t give off the same forced effeminate douchebag vibes that most Pans did. (Eddie didn't really care about the effeminate bit, just the fakeness - and he worked very hard to NOT be a douche.) He’d even borne witness to a pre-teen making himself throw up by deep-throating a lightsaber. (It had been gross to clean up, but pretty good for his pride all in all - Eddie could definitely take more than THAT.)

All of that being the case, Eddie was not easily surprised, these days, and so it was extremely jarring to register that he was indeed experiencing that emotion right here and right now in the Diamond Horseshoe.

Club Villain was a Halloween party exclusive dance spot. Different costumed villains were brought into and out of the Diamond Horseshoe Saloon in Frontierland as needed, and guests were at total liberty to dance with whoever was there at the time. It was kitschy, but Eddie kind of liked it. It gave his friends in entertainment a chance to have a little extra fun, and all he had to do was time their onstage vs. backstage time and maybe dance a little. No sweat. The treat shift kids (attractions cast, mostly) dealt with guests, and so the most tedious part of Eddie’s job was out of his hands.

His job wasn’t surprising, though. This was a pretty standard night at Club Villain - the Stepsisters were out doing their thing, Cruella was shrieking somewhere in the back, and there were no plans to pull in Maleficent as of yet. (Maleficent always made things ten times more complicated, since extra precautions needed to be taken in order to ensure that no one could tell there was a man in the costume.)

The fact that Jungle Cruise Richie was one of the cast members doing treat shift duty at Club Villain wasn’t really surprising, either. Eddie had figured that the odds would work out this way at some point. Even from only knowing him from afar, Eddie had had a feeling that Richie wouldn’t be able to resist the lurid green and purple of the treat shift costume.

No, the surprising thing was that Richie was looking...sad.

“What’s on your mind, Shortstack?” The guy who was friends with Dr. Facilier that night had caught Eddie staring at Richie, and was trying to parse out the situation as best he could without breaking character. “Got someone you’re looking to charm up? For a fee, I’m your guy.”

Eddie looked at the extensions that had been put on the man’s fingers to make them more spindly and couldn’t help but shudder. “I’m good, Voodoo Man, thanks. Looks like there’s some girls over there hoping to meet your Friends on the Other Side, though.”

Facilier turned around. “So there is. Good luck in your endeavors, little man.”

Eddie waited until he was well out of earshot to sigh in relief. Facilier hadn’t been openly flirty with Eddie (unlike, unfortunately, most of the douchehats in entertainment), but even so, Eddie didn’t really want to talk to any men tonight...except for Jungle Cruise Richie.

He really had terrible taste in men, when all was said and done.

There was no reason for his heart to be doing flip-flops whenever he saw Richie in his stupid purple pants and bat tie over by the door. There was no reason for him to blush when Richie cat-called him across Adventureland, or anxiously avoid Richie in the tunnels for fear of driving him away or embarrassing himself. There was no reason for him to like Richie at all, honestly. Richie was loud and brusque and all the things that Eddie would usually hate in a guy…

...except that he was so much more than just those things. Eddie had watched him greet kids with unparalleled enthusiasm at Jungle; had sat with him when his hand had been bleeding and he’d been upset about disappointing his fellow cast members by not being able to patch up well enough. He’d seen softness in Jungle Richie that didn't exist in any of the Prince Charmings or Gastons on property, and he figured that chasing that softness was worth a bad joke or two (or twenty, or a hundred, or too many to count).

(And if some of the jokes were funny, well...that was a secret Eddie would take to his grave. Not that he was that far away from the grave, according to Sonia’s wailing spiels every time he called home, but the expression stood.)

With all of those confusing feelings being what they were, Eddie supposed it made sense that he didn’t want Richie to be sad. The real issue was that Eddie had no idea what the hell to do about that particular thought. Talking to Richie would mean that Richie had won the little game they’d been playing, on and off, and Eddie didn’t really want that….but not talking to Richie would mean that Richie remained sad. It was a true Sophie’s choice for Eddie, and he found himself consumed by it to the point where he was having trouble getting people to their breaks on time. He just kept forgetting.

There was only one person Eddie could think of that might be able to salvage this, and as fate would have it, he was walking in the door, dressed unmistakably as Donald Duck. Eddie was kind of taken aback by the choice until he noticed that the man was flanked by two other men in beautiful, elaborate Panchito and Jose Carioca* costumes. All three were entirely too attractive to be outfitted so outrageously, but none of them seemed to be anything but excited to be there. _Birds of a feather_ , Eddie thought, and laughed to himself. Bill Denbrough was really something else.

Bill didn’t notice him right away - he and the dark-skinned guy in the Carioca costume had made a beeline to take selfies with Captain Hook instead - and so Eddie decided to bide his time until they were finished with their fun. He turned his attention instead to the pale, pretty-haired guy in the Panchito costume...who had made his way over to talk to Richie.

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

Eddie hadn’t anticipated that he might have _competition_.

Richie’s expression darkened when he identified the guy, but over the course of the conversation, a sweet, genuine smile slowly made its way across his face in a way that made Eddie absolutely sick with envy. He assumed that this person was one of Richie’s Jungle Cruise buddies, given that Bill seemed to know him, too, and he immediately began to imagine them flirting in the moments that Richie was at any position other than Greeter (the farthest position away from the ride, and the only one at which he could see Eddie well enough to hit on him). Richie would throw out a flirty joke, and the other guy would toss his beautiful hair and laugh sweetly while pretending to chastise him. In short, the interaction would be the exact opposite of Richie’s determined Disney dick jokes and Eddie’s shrill shrieking.

God, Eddie wished he were good at being soft with people. Growing up with his mother had made him so fucking defensive. At work, that was usually a good thing, but socially…

The conversation had apparently concluded. Richie was smiling and bouncing from foot to foot again, mop of unruly curls bopping up and down a little bit to the music, and Pretty Hair was...heading Eddie’s way.

That didn’t seem right.

“Are you looking for a particular character?” Eddie asked nervously, trying to remember who was set to rotate back in next. Pretty Hair was even more beautiful up close, and it was messing with Eddie’s concentration.

“I’m looking for you, I think,” the guy said, frowning tightly. “You’re Eddie, correct?”

Eddie pointed to his nametag. “I am, yeah. How did you know?”

“Richie’s my roommate.” Pretty Hair gestured back over to Richie, who was watching them intently. “I’m Stan.”

Eddie looked between the two of them suspiciously, his heart in his stomach. “Roommates?”

“And they were roommates,” Stan muttered before clearing his throat and speaking regularly again. “Yes. Roommates, old friends, occasional enemies. Richie would probably start singing from Wicked right about now, but that’s not my style, so I’ll leave you to imagine.”

“I imagine very well,” said Eddie, still trying to parse out the Stan and Richie situation. Nothing Stan said had made it any clearer whether or not they were hooking up. “I’m sorry to be missing out on the romantic duet, though.”

Stan almost doubled over at that. “Oh, buddy, _no_. It’s not that kind of show. I’ve got two other Caballeros for that.”

Eddie could all but feel his air passageways deconstrict. Stan was _Bill’s_ boyfriend, not Richie’s. “Lucky you,” Eddie finally managed, unable to keep himself from smiling gratefully. “Bill Denbrough’s top of the line.”

“Don’t I know it,” Stan agreed appreciatively. “Mike’s brilliant as well, but I imagine you haven’t met him yet.”

“Is he Magic Kingdom Cast?” Eddie asked.

“Epcot,” Stan corrected. Eddie shook his head.

“I don’t know shit about Epcot.” He paused, looking back over at Richie, who was still watching the two of them interact with a sort of laser focus. “Is he okay?”

“Mike?” Stan squinted back at him.

“Richie.” Eddie sighed exasperatedly. “He seems sad tonight.”

“Oh.” Stan suddenly looked embarrassed. “That’s on me. I threw him under the bus at a social event recently to try and look cool, and he’s been kind of extra sensitive about it. I don’t know what the hell Ben Hanscom said to him, but. Yeah.”

“Do you do that often?” Eddie asked, feeling a little defensiveness sneak into his tone. He remembered the tears in Richie’s eyes when Eddie had bandaged him up, and the thought of laughing, jubilant Richie crying again for any reason was kind of making him want to scream.

“No.” Stan picked at one of the feathers on his sleeve. “It’s usually the other way around, honestly. He says insensitive shit, I forgive him. But.” He looked back over his shoulder at Richie. “That doesn’t mean that it was okay for me to do it back, especially in mixed company.”

“I’m glad you worked it out,” Eddie said honestly, studying the sharp lines of Stan’s face and deciding to trust him. “So it’s regular old Richie now, then? When should I expect the invitation to dance?”

“He’s trying to respect your boundaries or something gentlemanly like that.” Stan rolled his eyes. “Again, too much advice from Ben Hanscom. But he’s offered to meet you in the cast section of the Adventureland Veranda on your first fifteen, if you would be so kind.”

Eddie almost laughed. “And he sent you over here to ask me, huh? What is this, middle school?”

“Just say yes,” Stan replied exhaustedly, “for Richie’s sake. For my sake. For the sake of the Magic Kingdom.”

“Yes,” Eddie confirmed, meeting Richie’s eyes on the other side of the room as he said so and feeling butterflies start to surface in his stomach. “But only if his fifteen lines up with my fifteen. I don’t want him sneaking offstage on my account.”

“He’ll make sure of it,” Stan promised. “Good. Okay. Well, nice to meet you, Eddie. I’m sure I’ll be seeing more of you.”

“Go dance with your Caballeros.” Eddie flushed a little bit at what he imagined Stan was insinuating. Did Stan think Richie was going to take Eddie home...? “I’ll see you around.”

“Don’t break his heart!” Stan called, already walking away, and Eddie just about fell on the floor.

Him? Break someone else’s heart? HIGHLY unlikely.

Still, those words kept buzzing in Eddie’s head as he made his way out to the Veranda on his first fifteen. _What if he hurt Richie by accident? What if he himself got hurt? This was too risky. He barely even knew the guy. How was this supposed to work….?!_

Eddie’s paranoid thoughts were loud and pervasive, but they all vanished immediately once Eddie saw Richie leaning up against the wall of the Veranda. Richie was gnawing nervously on a fun-size Snickers bar that he’d undoubtedly snatched out of one of the treat barrels** on the other side of the wall. His hair was sticking in a million different directions, and his lime green vest and thick, huge glasses were both askew in the exact same way. In that moment, Eddie could think of absolutely nothing besides his consuming desire to smooth out Richie’s edges; to hold all of that wildness in his hands.

Richie looked up from his Snickers and, upon seeing Eddie, promptly dropped it on the ground. He made no move to bend over and get it, and Eddie felt his stomach swoop. There was no question about it - he had Richie’s undivided attention.

“Eds,” Richie greeted quietly.

“Stalker,” Eddie smiled, stepping closer in spite of his nerves. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” Richie said quickly. “My mouth is always way the fuck ahead of my brain, and I don’t--”

“If I were uncomfortable, I wouldn’t be here,” Eddie pointed out.

“You never know,” Richie countered. “You might have just been trying to catch an eyeful of Tarzan on the other side of the wall here.”

Eddie wrinkled his nose. “Not my type. Grossly huge, and too Jesus-y.”

Richie immediately looked relieved, but then his eyes widened in alarm when he realized exactly what Eddie had said. “Oh, it’s that guy? I always end up stuck behind him at the Subway in the Mouseketeeria.”

“Has he asked you if you’ve embraced Jesus?” Eddie giggled. “I always thought that was a really fun way of phrasing that.”

“He did,” confirmed Richie. “I told him that Jesus and I were just platonic pals, but I’d be down to be friends with benefits with him if he expressed interest.”

“Well, shit,” Eddie said, impressed in spite of himself. “What did he say to that?”

“He made the sign of the cross at me,” Richie shrugged. “We haven’t spoken since.”

They made eye contact at that, and then both dissolved into peals of nervous laughter. 

“Fuck,” Richie wheezed once he was finally able to speak again. “Sorry. I just...I have no idea what to say to you. I like you so much, and all we’ve done so far is fight.”

Eddie was kind of stunned at the bold declaration from Richie. He hadn’t expected anything serious when he’d come out here.

“Well, what if we didn’t fight?” Eddie asked tentatively. “It doesn’t have to be bad puns every time, you know.”

Richie made a mock-offended face. “I’ll have you know, Edward, that I’ve been on my best behavior the whole night. Haven’t even mentioned my dick once - to you OR the guests.”

Eddie shook his head. “Aaaand you just blew that, now, didn’t you.”

Richie cringed upon realizing his mistake. “Okay, sure, whatever, but you can’t deny I’ve been good this week. I’ve been excellent.”

“You have,” Eddie agreed. “It’s like you’re actually trying to ask me out instead of just embarrassing me in front of guests.”

The sentence fell out of Eddie’s mouth before he realized exactly what it was he’d said. Once he did, he clapped his hands over his face in horror.

“Ignore that, oh my God. You don’t...I’m not expecting….”

“You wanna go out?” Richie asked softly. Eddie shut up abruptly, and peeked back at Richie through his fingers.

“Really?” Eddie squeaked.

“Yeah. Uh. Dinner?” Richie shoved his hands into his purple pockets, the picture of awkwardness. “Sweet Tomatoes, maybe? I dunno if you’re into salad, but I--”

“I love Sweet Tomatoes,” Eddie said breathlessly. “Let’s do that...and if you tell a single sex joke, you pay the bill.”

Richie lit up. A competitive smirk quickly replaced his nervous smile. “Deal. Are you working Wednesday?”

“No, that’s the first day of my weekend.” Eddie couldn’t help but smirk back at Richie. “I’ll pick you up. I like to drive.”

“Okay!” Richie looked half-smug, and half like he absolutely couldn’t believe his luck. “Should we do the phone number thing, or--”

“No time,” Eddie pointed out. “I’ve gotta go back onstage. You, too, soon.”

“Later, then?” Richie asked, hope all but emanating from his smile.

“Later,” Eddie beamed, and pushed back in to Club Villain just as the macarena came over the speakers.

Eddie Kaspbrak had seen it all, maybe, perhaps, but upon watching Richie go toe-to-toe in a dance-off with the Evil Stepsisters when he returned from his break, he knew: Richie was by far his favorite thing to watch, and something told him that he’d have plenty of opportunities to do just that in the near future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bev totally made the Caballero costumes btw
> 
> *Just google The Three Caballeros, fam. Mike is the green one and Stan is the red one.  
> **There are Trick or Treat trails at the Halloween Parties! You can get a metric fuckton of candy there. Richie totally steals it.
> 
> anyways give me shit for my writing in the comments or at skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com :)))


	5. “Kingdom Dance” (Stan)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “All right!” The DJ stopped the Haunted Mansion/Thriller remix that he was playing and spoke into the microphone. “Apparently, now that...who? Trashmouth what? Anyway, everyone’s here now, so we’re gonna hold our annual dance competition!”
> 
> Of course there was a dance competition. Stan couldn’t help but laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been waiting so long to write this Stan chapter I LOVE Stanley Uris

**STANLEY URIS**  
**FRONT DESK, YACHT CLUB**  
**or at this moment**  
**THE DIAMOND HORSESHOE for the AD-LIB HALLOWEEN PARTY**  
**OCTOBER 31st**

The Halloween party that the Adventureland/Liberty Square attractions cast members threw themselves every October 31st was said to be the stuff of legends. The Diamond Horseshoe was closed to guests for the night, a DJ was installed, and chaos, apparently, ensued.

“So why haven’t I heard about this before?” Stan asked flatly, picking at his fingernails. “If it’s as much as a quote-unquote _throwdown_ as you say it is, wouldn’t people outside of Ad/Lib cast have gotten word of it?”

Bill hadn’t had a response to that outside of angry huffing. Stan settled for sharing a victory look with Mike.

He had no interest in going to the party, of course. He wasn’t opposed to the idea of partying in general, but Ad/Lib attractions cast was notoriously…...well, _Richie_ worked there, which was enough to give a person a sense of how the rest of the area behaved.

Still, Bill was insistent - apparently he picked up enough Mansion shifts over the course of the year to score an invite - and so Stan was standing in the living room of Mike’s apartment, dressed as a bird for the second time in two weeks.

Mike was on the other side of the room, buttoning up his Jose Carioca jacket and staring at the swirled makeup around Stan’s eyes. (Bev had done makeup for them both times, and this go-around, she’d added rhinestones, which according to Bill and Mike made Stan’s eyes look ‘endless’.) “Bird patterning suits you,” he said. “It’s elegant.”

“I used to watch birds,” Stan admitted, “like, as a hobby. I stopped doing that when I became a coordinator and trainer over at Yacht, though.”

He’d confide in Mike in Bill some other time that birds were his favorite animals because as a child, his greatest dream was to fly away. He’d tell them that his faith, his mental health, and his sexuality had always been at odds in a way that often held him back from being the person that he wanted to be, and so when he went away to school, he threw himself into hospitality as a way to practice compassion - both to other people and to himself - in an organized way. He had all the time in the world to let them know his story, his dreams, his hopes...and he _would_. That was the alarming part. He would.

Stan hadn’t ever confided anything in anyone that wasn’t Richie before. 

He had no idea how he’d fallen into trusting Bill Denbrough and Mike Hanlon so quickly, but being with them felt as natural as breathing. He’d watched Bill wander around the Boardwalk and wondered about how it would feel to fall into his lost blue eyes, but things hadn’t really clicked into place until they’d walked into the Canada pavilion at Bill’s insistence and seen Mike at the KidCot station.

Stan didn’t believe in fate (or even God) at this point, but if there was any sort of karma in the universe at all, he had to have done something extraordinarily right to have found Bill and Mike, who sat with him through his routines and guided him kindly through his anxieties. It was like Bev had said on that first night: sometimes it felt good to have others take care of you, even if you are the most paranoid stickler (Richie’s words, not Stan’s) on the planet.

“Thanks,” Stan replied simply, smiling a little bit at the flash of the green rhinestones covering Mike’s cheeks. “It suits you, too. Very classy.”

“I wish mine was classy,” Bill sighed from over in the doorway. The Donald costume was more ‘cute’ than ‘sexy’, unlike what Stan and Mike had going on, and Bill was extremely conscious of that fact.

“You look beautiful, too,” Stan promised, crossing over and straightening Bill’s bowtie. “Kind of stupid, but still beautiful.”

Bill shoved him away playfully. “Are you saying you’re here for my looks rather than my brains? That’s out of character, Uris.”

“You had to have known,” Stan deadpanned. “The first thing you did in front of me, officially, was faint, which is less Stephen Hawking than it is ‘damsel in distress’, I think…”

Mike laughed, surprised. “You fainted, Bill?”

Bill flushed, face a stark contrast to the white Donald makeup. “It was hot.”

“You mean Stan was hot,” corrected Richie, waltzing into the living room with a swooping cackle. Stan sighed, and began to steel himself for being the butt of Richie’s jokes for the rest of the evening. Why had they thought it would be a good idea to attend this party with Richie and Eddie?

In all honesty, though, Stan was kind of grateful that the two of them were making romantic progress. This was the first time in a long time that Richie had actually taken enough of an interest in a person to pursue them - most of the time, one date was enough for Richie to assess the situation and decide that he didn’t like the person that much after all, but this would be date number three for Richie and Eddie, and Richie wasn’t showing any signs of wanting to slow down. He was hinging a few too many hopes on the whole situation for Stan's liking, but at least he was taking an interest in _something_.

Heck, Richie’d had a heightened interest in Eddie even before they started going out. None of his crushes had consumed his attention (and thereby Stan’s) like Eddie had. He’d obsessed for weeks. Stan, despite not having seen Eddie at work until the Halloween party he’d attended, could have described any one of Eddie’s work outfits, expressions, or moods entirely accurately before ever meeting him, because Richie talked about him thoroughly and incredibly often.

The dates had almost been complete nightmares. Richie had been a trainwreck before the first one.

_“He’s gonna find out, Stan!” Richie hissed, standing in front of the full-length mirror in his bedroom and gesturing to the shirt that he’d screwed up the buttons on. “He’s gonna find out that I’m a garbage human being, and he’s not--”_

_“He said yes for a reason,” Stan reminded him for the thousandth time already that evening. “You’ll only screw this up if you pretend to be someone you’re not.”_

_Richie had just stared blankly back at the mirror at that. It had taken another five minutes of coaxing to get him to try the buttons again._

Richie hadn’t ever gotten the buttons right, but apparently, the date had gone well anyway. Richie had come back beaming and spouting off a million cool facts about pathogens that he’d learned over the course of the evening. Stan didn’t really understand how that was attractive in any way, but he’d nodded along semi-enthusiastically anyway.

Their second date was a park date, and Richie came home absolutely ECSTATIC about that one. Eddie was the first person to ever beat him in Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, and apparently, dexterity was sexy. Stan was less apt to disagree with that, considering how handy Mike was, but he maintained the same level of enthusiasm as the date before just to be safe.

For his friend’s sake, Stan hoped that date number three would keep the streak of good dates going. 

“Stan is hot,” Eddie agreed, following Richie into the room. He and Richie were dressed as Eve and Wall-E, respectively, which meant that Eddie was all but glowing white. He was dazzling, actually. The sleek white and chrome suit that Bev had tailored for him made him look a little bit angelic, and Stan took a moment to be quietly satisfied by the thought of all the dumbass Princes in entertainment not knowing whether to be jealous or turned on by Eddie in that getup.

“I know, thanks.” Stan smiled over at Eddie, and Eddie’s cheeks colored a little in response. The poor guy was still getting used to the dynamics of the rest of the group. Apparently, he hadn’t ever had much by way of friends - which was really too bad, because Stan rather liked Eddie and didn’t understand why anyone else wouldn’t. “You guys almost ready?”

“Born ready,” Richie replied, banging against the chestplate of his costume and glancing over to Eddie for affirmation. Richie’s Wall-E outfit was very clanky and was basically designed to draw attention to himself - so in short, it was very Richie. Bev had joked that she’d made a trash can for the Trashmouth, and they’d all gotten a good laugh at that.

“Then go start the car, Mike,” Stan ordered, “and let’s get this over with.”

The plan was to park at Epcot and take the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. They were set to arrive fashionably late, and, if Stan had anything to do with it, leave respectably early. Apart from Richie’s costume being the loudest damn thing on Earth, they executed that plan with relative ease. It wasn’t as smooth of a process as it would have been if Ben were present, but unfortunately he and Bev were otherwise occupied - they were on their Ohana date at long last. Stan was objectively grateful that they had gotten their shit together with that, but without Ben’s grounding presence, Richie and Eddie’s shrill, off-key singalong to “You’re Welcome” was all the more irritating.

“If you do the rap, I’ll smother both of you with these feathers,” Stan warned, waving his arm around in warning. Beside him, Mike muffled a snort.

Eddie stopped singing, obviously embarrassed, but Richie just laughed, slinging an arm around Eddie (which served to embarrass him further) and shaking his head at Stan.

“Intimidated by my demigod singing powers?” he joked, rubbing his thumb testingly across Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie made quick, apologetic eye contact with Stan, but made no move to push Richie away.

“Worried about the ear safety of the guests sharing our monorail car,” Stan corrected, smiling at Eddie to let him know that things were okay.

Naturally, that meant that Richie sang even louder between the time they exited the monorail and the time they arrived at the Diamond Horseshoe. Stan couldn’t be bothered to shush him again, so he quickened his pace, and by the time they crossed into Liberty Square, Bill was panting in trying to keep up with Stan and Mike. (His face was all red, and sweat had obscured his makeup somewhat. It was actually pretty sexy, if Stan did say so himself.)

As soon as they walked into the Horseshoe, a loud cry arose. The Jungle Cruise cast had apparently been anticipating Richie, and he strutted towards them immediately, a huge, proud smile on his face. He gestured for Eddie to follow, and Eddie acquiesced (albeit nervously), taking Richie’s huge hand and letting him lead him into the throng of exuberant Skippers. 

After they left, Stan was left to survey the rest of the room. It was packed - Ad/Lib had come out in full force, and they’d brought in cast members from all over property. In fact, there were probably TOO many people there...there wasn’t much space for dancing, which was hurting the party’s vibe. Fortunately, Ad/Lib was full of theatre kids that didn’t give a shit whether or not there was dance space, and so there was a lot of shuffling around near the middle of the room that Stan assumed was modified dancing.

In short, then, it wasn’t the epic rager that Bill had described, but that was kind of a relief. Stan could deal with this.

“All right!” The DJ stopped the Haunted Mansion/Thriller remix that he was playing and spoke into the microphone. “Apparently, now that...who? Trashmouth what? Anyway, everyone’s here now, so we’re gonna hold our annual dance competition!”

Of course there was a dance competition. Stan couldn’t help but laugh. He wasn’t the only one, either - a small stormtrooper next to him was chuckling lightly under his helmet.

“Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?” Stan teased as the DJ began explaining the rules of the contest. The trooper took his helmet off to reveal a face that was remarkably Eddie Kaspbrak-esque, and Stan took a step back, surprised.

“I mean, yeah,” the stormtrooper admitted, flashing Stan a sweet smile, “but if I grow, they won’t let me hang out with Peter Pan anymore, so I guess I’m stuck.”

“Pan, huh?” Stan began to ask, but was distracted by Mike pushing forward on his other side.

“You ready to see these moves?” Mike asked as he passed Stan by, flexing quickly and winking.

Stan gaped at him. “You’re competing?”

“Richie asked me to,” Mike explained, furrowing his brow. “Apparently Eddie doesn’t want to. Didn’t you hear Richie calling over?”

“I didn’t,” Stan admitted. “Must have tuned his stupid voice out. Good luck, sweetheart!”

“I don’t need luck,” Mike called back, turning and continuing to move through the crowd, and the confidence in his voice made Stan’s knees feel a little weak.

“Boyfriend?” asked Peter Pan quietly from next to him. Stan turned back around to see that he’d apparently disappointed the guy - his eyes were sad.

“One of,” Stan explained, gesturing to Bill on his other side. Bill noticed the gesture and came up tight next to Stan, grabbing his hand and lacing their fingers together. Stan squeezed his hand in return, already feeling more grounded.

“Oh,” Peter Pan said, nodding at Bill. “Bill, right? From Guest Relations?”

“Yeah,” Bill said, putting his hand out to shake. “Peter Pan?”

“Isaiah,” Isaiah/Pan corrected, shaking Bill’s hand lightly. “Quite a catch of a boyfriend you have there, Bill.”

“He’s perfect,” Bill agreed, and Stan felt his cheeks heat up in spite of himself. He hated when his body betrayed his feelings...but for Bill, just this once, he would allow it.

“And we’ll begin in five, four, three…” the DJ counted down, and the competitors were off, dancing in pairs to the tune of Britney Spears’ Toxic.

When Stan finally located Richie and Mike in the group of dancers, he felt a shiver rip through his entire body.

Richie was a pretty decent dancer - Stan had known that much beforehand. He wasn’t sensual by any means (Stan didn’t think he had a sensual bone in his body, in fact), but his moves were high-energy in a Roy Purdy sort of way, and he was an obvious crowd favorite, which heightened his appeal.

Mike, though. Holy shit, could Mike move his hips.

Stan felt his mouth go dry at around the same time as Bill’s grip tightened around his hand. They hadn’t actually done anything sexual together yet - making out on Mike’s couch on that first night was as far as they’d gone - but the longer Stan stared at Mike out on the dance floor, the more sure he was that tonight was the night.

He looked over to Bill to confirm that his suspicions were correct, and to his great amusement, he caught Bill adjusting himself in his pants. Bill glanced back at him sheepishly, but upon noticing Stan’s smirk, wrapped a possessive arm around his waist. It was seeming more and more like Stan was going to get his wish to leave early.

When the song ended, Stan and Bill were bouncing on the balls of their feet in anticipation. Stan looked around for Eddie, planning to go over and explain the situation so that Eddie had time to find a separate ride for he and Richie, but Eddie seemed to have vanished into the crowd. Well, whatever. He’d find Eddie after they got Mike. Mike was the priority.

Mike and Richie were the winners, of course. They were each given some kind of cash prize, and Mike picked Richie up and pulled him into a spinning hug once the money was dispensed. Stan and Bill pushed their way through the crowd while Richie was still getting his bearings after having been put down, and together, they rushed at Mike.

“You were so fucking sexy,” Stan whispered as he pulled Mike in for a congratulatory hug.

“Yeah, we were thinking,” Bill added on, “that maybe we should go home for a little bit…”

Stan could feel Mike smile into his shoulder. “Liked what you saw, huh?”

“Yes,” Stan and Bill both chorused in unison.

“Hold up,” Mike said, drawing back sharply. “Yes, let’s go back soon, but...where’s Richie going? Eddie’s the other way.”

Stan turned around, frowning. Maybe Richie’d lost track of Eddie like he had, and was searching for him...but no, Richie seemed to have a clear idea of where he was going. He was heading for little Isaiah, who, with his back turned and his helmet off, looked remarkably like Eddie in his Eve costume…

...oh, shit.

“Guys, where’s Richie?” Because the world apparently had an abysmal sense of humor, Eddie had reappeared. He was peering around the side of Bill’s arm, looking lost and confused.

“Richie,” Stan yelled in warning, but it was too late. Richie had grabbed Isaiah, spun him around and…

Stan turned away, and in the process of doing so, watched the expression on Eddie’s face change from confused to heartbroken.

“It’s not what you think--” Stan began, but Eddie wasn’t listening. He was charging towards Richie, eyes glassing over with tears.

“Wait,” Stan tried, but Mike and Bill caught him by his elbows.

“You can’t fix everything,” Bill told him softly...and as he spoke, the crowd thickened around Richie and Eddie to the point where Stan could neither see nor hear them, which was remarkable given that they were maybe the loudest two people he knew.

“Give them some space,” Mike agreed, tugging at Stan’s sleeve. “They’ll work it out.”

Stan stared after them for another long moment, and then turned to go after his boyfriends.

“I hope so,” he said, pushing Richie to the back of his mind and switching his focus to other, more pleasurable things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and suddenly the Peter Pan comparisons are a PLOT POINT
> 
> yell @ me in the comments or at skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com


	6. "Bella Notte" (Ben)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m really sorry,” Ben tried, “I should have asked you--”
> 
> “We’re good.” Bev shook her head, smiling softly. “You don’t have to ask my permission to be kind to people, Ben. And I really do appreciate you being kind.”
> 
> “Most people are kind,” Ben shrugged, cutting into his chicken in an attempt to alleviate his embarrassment.
> 
> “No,” Bev said. She reached across the table and touched his hand meaningfully. “They’re not.”

**BEN HANSCOM**  
**IMAGINEER at dinner at OHANA at the POLYNESIAN RESORT**  
**OCTOBER 31st...LATER**

Ben Hanscom had never considered himself a lucky person, per-se.

Sure, he had a pretty fabulous job, all things considered. Most people would consider that lucky. Ben knew better. He’d trained to be an Imagineer pretty much all his life, or at least since he got his hands on _Han Solo at Stars’ End_ as a kid and lost himself to dreams of space and fantasy. He devoted his life first to model spaceships and Lego sets, and then to drafting classes in high school, and eventually to his architecture major at the University of Georgia, where he’d put together an impressive series of whimsical, artistic building designs as a final portfolio. His professors hadn’t been incredibly enthusiastic about it, but Disney had been, and he was offered a job pretty immediately. Hard work paid off some of the time, as it turned out.

Socially, he’d actually been incredibly _un_ lucky. He’d never had much time for friends or relationships in the face of his work, and it showed - when he was put into social situations, he really had no idea how to make good conversation. He went through intense periods of fixation (his Star Wars obsession never died, but he’d cycled through Miyazaki, Lord of the Rings, and many other things on the side), and so it followed that he had a difficult time talking about anything but his current passion, which left most people out to dry when they tried to speak with him. The most luck he’d had with friends, until recently, was with his roommate Mike Hanlon, who tolerated his fixations and occasionally played along. 

That was what brought upon his desire to lose weight, if he was being honest with himself. It wasn’t health or fitness motivated; it was really just an attempt to make himself into someone that other people would be excited to be friends with.

All of this being the case, he’d never really had a date before, let alone one with someone as incredible as Beverly Marsh, so it was maybe safe to say his luck was turning (or that his weight-loss was paying off, one of the two).

Well, no. It was really too soon to tell about the luck turning. He’d reassess after the date had actually transpired.

It was going well so far, as far as he could tell. He’d picked her up at her place, and she’d been dressed in a breathtaking green shimmery shirt and dress pants that he hadn’t been able to keep himself from staring at. She’d caught him, which had freaked him out a little, but she’d immediately assuaged his nerves by laughing it off - apparently she thought it was cute. He had a feeling she was lying, but they proceeded anyway. By the time they’d gotten to the Polynesian she’d laughed at six out of seven of his jokes, which he felt was a pretty good average, statistically speaking. Not that he meant to be counting, of course, but he was so freaking nervous he couldn’t help but catalogue everything. Even now, after having spent the last five minutes standing in the Tambu lounge with her joking about the pineapple glasses they were sipping out of, he was hyper-conscious of every movement she made, every calorie he consumed, every syllable that came out of his mouth. Anything could screw this up. He had to be vigilant.

“I don’t think I’ve ever eaten here for dinner before,” she was saying, looking around the lobby with interest. “I’m not even sure I’ve been here since they renovated. Didn’t they have a waterfall downstairs before?”

“Yeah, I kind of liked that, to be honest,” Ben replied, following her gaze over to the gift shop across the way. “This wasn’t my project.”

“If it were, it’d look a lot cooler than this, I bet.” Bev turned back to face him, meeting his eyes and smiling sweetly. He clutched his pineapple drink a little tighter. He’d barely had any of it, and it sloshed around dangerously in his hand, but he couldn’t help himself. She was smiling at him…

“I’m not super talented or anything, I promise,” he managed, smiling back shyly, “but I’d have at least kept the waterfall.”

The buzzer in his pocket began to go off, flashing red and vibrating crazily. Bev looked down at where it was lighting up in his pants and put her hand over her mouth, obviously stifling a laugh.

“Either our food’s ready to go or you’re happier to be on this date than I ever imagined,” she chortled, standing up and offering him a hand, presumably to pull him to his feet. 

Ben allowed himself a moment of embarrassment, and then took the hand she was offering. She pulled much harder than he was anticipating, and he tumbled to his feet, spilling his drink a little bit in the process. Nothing got on either of them, but he was still mortified as he flagged down cast members to help clean up. That was surely points against him - maybe enough to be the beginning of the end for this date.

But somehow, Beverly still wasn’t upset. In fact, she was looking at him more warmly now than she had been a few minutes ago. He really had absolutely no read on her at all.

They entered the restaurant in easy silence, following their over-enthusiastic CP host A’mya (pronounced Ah-Maya, as she explained to them three separate times) to a table in the back corner of the main room, by the window. That much, at least, was perfect - he’d timed dinner to align with the Halloween Party exclusive fireworks show, Hallowishes, and this table would allow them to both participate in the fun main dining room activities and have a perfect view of the show when the time came. Being detail-oriented was hopefully going to work in his favor this time.

A’mya dropped off a loaf of Hawaiian pineapple bread, and then they were alone again. Both of them stared at the bread hesitantly. Ben wondered if Bev was also nervous about overindulging and looking like a pig. He figured she probably wasn’t; food paranoia had kind of become a personal issue for him, and it was becoming clearer by the second that he needed to get the hell over immediately or else the rest of this date was going to go to shit before it even really started.

He reached for the loaf of bread and tore off a piece, and watched her eyes light up green. 

His taking the piece of bread had opened up the conversation like a dam breaking. Suddenly, everything was funny and nothing was awkward. He was telling stories about going through guest survey data without feeling like he was being boring, and she was telling stories about having a collection of name tags with weird names (lost name tags were always returned to costuming) that he was totally and completely engaged in. The waiter brought out vegetables and noodles and everything under the sun, and Ben was okay with it. He’d almost forgotten how nice it felt to eat like a normal person.

The luau lady that led small children and drunk adults around the main room in dances and games had appeared in the time between the potstickers and the main meat course, and Bev was well on her way to falling in that ‘drunk adult’ category (she was almost finished with her second pineapple drink at that point), so after she finished telling the story about the nametags, she grabbed Ben’s hand and gestured with her chin towards the lady. Ben wasn’t usually a ‘draw attention to himself’ guy, but she made him feel a little fearless. He scooted backwards in his chair and stood up, ready to lead them over.

He was so focused on heading down to join the parade of hulaing kids that he almost missed the person catapulting towards them through said parade. It took an angry exclamation from a parent to make Ben look towards the end of the train of children, but when he did, he immediately sat back down in surprise. Bev stayed standing. She picked up her drink again and took a long swallow, obviously bracing herself.

“What are you doing here, Richie?” she asked as soon as he was within earshot.

Richie looked more out of sorts than Ben had ever seen him, which was really saying something, because Richie was always kind of out of sorts. He was carrying most of his Wall-E outerwear, which left him in a white t-shirt that was soaked through with sweat and a pair of brown dance pants that were basically leggings. He still had his costume boots and gloves on. The tourist families around them couldn’t keep their eyes off of him. One mother with a particularly conservative haircut had turned her daughter’s chair away.

“I have a problem,” Richie said, voice wavering in a dangerously teary way.

“Yeah, I bet.” Bev offered her chair. “Sit.”

Richie moved over and sat in the chair robotically, as if someone had turned off his brain. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“What happened to you?” Ben asked, taking stock of the slight redness of Richie’s eyes and the remnants of lip gloss near the corners of his mouth. Bev had described her makeup plans for the rest of the crew to Ben on their ride over, and Ben couldn’t for the life of him remember who she’d decided to put lip gloss on, except that he knew it wasn’t Richie. Her plan for Richie had just been to smear bronzer and black pencil all over his face and call it a day. Most of that had either been wiped or sweat off, but the lipgloss remained, somehow.

“I fucked up,” Richie said flatly, staring down at Bev’s half-eaten vegetables.

“We got that,” Bev said, probably harsher than she meant to. She hovered over his chair, obviously concerned but not really knowing how to show it. “How? Where’s Eddie?”

Richie inhaled slowly and picked up Bev’s fork, moving her vegetables around on her plate. “Yeah, that’s the problem.”

Ben watched him push the food around, and suddenly felt the weight of what he had eaten like bricks in his stomach. “Start from the beginning, okay?”

Richie nodded numbly. “We got to the party, and I took Eds to meet my Skip friends. He was kind of into it, but not really, and I should have just...the dance competition started right away once we got there, though, and I really love that shit, you know?”

Ben had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, but Bev was nodding understandingly, so he just copied her, figuring it would be easier to pretend.

“And I won this year!” This was the first thing that seemed to knock Richie out of his haze. He smiled a small smile, obviously proud of his victory. Bev patted him softly on the back. “Eds didn’t want to compete, but Mike did, and Mike’s awesome at dancing.”

“He sure is,” Ben confirmed, smiling at the memory of Mike busting out his best Michael Jackson on one of the first days they’d spent together in the apartment. They’d been decorating the walls, and Mike had felt like he needed to pay particular homage to his Captain EO poster. Ben was a terrible dancer himself, so he’d laughed and let Mike do all the work on that front. 

“So after we win, I’m jazzed, right?” Richie’s voice had fallen again. He was back to the concerning monotone. “Totally fueled on adrenaline. I see Mike go over to Stan and Bill, who are the most ridiculous, horniest fuckers on this whole property, by the way, and behind them I see this tiny kid in white, right? And from behind, hopped up on endorphins, my idiot brain is like, ‘it’s Eds, he went to go stand with people he knew while I was dancing’.” 

Ben’s heart sank. He had a feeling he knew where this was going.

“So I went over to this guy,” Richie continued, volume rapidly decreasing, “and Eds and I haven’t kissed or done anything yet because we’re both nervous wrecks, but I figure why not, right, returning champion. So I spin this guy around and kiss him right on the mouth.”

“It wasn’t Eddie, was it?” asked Ben, trying to soften the blow of actually having to say the transgression out loud for Richie.

“It was not,” Richie confirmed, dropping Bev’s fork and sliding forward to rest his head in his hands. His elbow almost landed in the potsticker dish, but Bev was quick, and slid the dish away before too much damage could be done. “His name was Isaiah, according to Stan. Entertainment cast, friends with Peter Pan. He was dressed as a Stormtrooper, which is basically the same freaking costume that Eddie had on. I couldn’t catch a fucking break if I tried.”

“So Eddie’s mad at you,” Bev postulated, frowning.

“He won’t even talk to me,” Richie confirmed, still not raising his head. “He saw me do it, and ran out pretty much immediately. No conversation, no phone communication, no nothing.”

“All right.” Bev nodded slowly, clearly taking inventory of the situation. “So, first of all...why are you here?”

Richie shifted his head a little bit so that he could peek up at Ben from under his glasses.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” he said softly. “Bill, Stan, and Mike were long gone by the time I’d come back from chasing after Eddie, and I couldn’t...my Jungle friends aren’t…”

Ben understood what he was trying to say. Work friends were all right, but there was something more meaningful about connections made with people that were able to consciously choose to befriend you. The people you knew at work were people you were somewhat forced to interact with.

“I know what you mean,” Ben said, trying to project warmth into his tone. He reached across the table and tenuously put his hand on Richie’s, hoping that he wasn’t overstepping his boundaries. To his great relief, Richie seemed more than okay with the contact. He grabbed Ben’s hand quickly and immediately after initial contact was made and held tight. 

Their waiter, Kevin, had snuck back around Bev and had apparently been waiting for a good time to come through with a skewer of shrimp. Given that this crisis had so far offered no good shrimp break opportunities, Kevin was forced to choose this moment to return to offer out food.

“Excuse me,” he said to Bev, who jumped a little when she realized he was behind her. “This is your seat, right? Who is this other gentleman?”

“I’m Richie,” Richie introduced himself, apparently unable to keep himself from speaking. “I’ll be out of everyone’s hair in a sec. In the meantime, load ‘er up for Bev here.” He offered up Bev’s plate, and Kevin began to slide shrimp off of the skewer and into the space next to Bev’s vegetables.

“And you, sir?” Kevin asked Ben after Richie had decided that Bev had enough shrimp. (There were at least 10 shrimp on Bev’s plate. Richie was a true agent of chaos.) 

“I’ll take two, please,” Ben said meekly, and with a relieved smile, Kevin delivered the shrimp and scurried off.

Bev stared down at her plate. “Richie, I don’t eat seafood.”

Richie shrugged. “I’ll take one for the team, then.” 

“Rich--” she began to protest, but he was already digging into the first shrimp. Bev shared an exasperated look with Ben, but they seemed to be in agreeance not to stop him. He’d had a rough night. 

“So how can we help you with this?” Ben asked, poking at his own shrimp with a fork.

“Do either of you have Eddie’s number?” Richie asked through a mouthful of shrimp. “He won’t talk to me, but he might talk to one of you.”

“I do,” Bev volunteered, pulling out her phone. “He gave it to me so that I could send him advice and articles on skin-care. Apparently, Florida water doesn’t agree with his delicate complexion, or whatever his mother told him that he had.”

“He has great skin,” Richie protested. “Tell him he doesn’t need any products.”

Bev shot him an unenthused look. “Not a priority right now, Richie. I’m gonna text him that Bill wants to meet him at DAK* tomorrow morning. He said yesterday that his weekend starts tomorrow, right?”

“I think?” Richie looked up from his shrimp, trying to sort things out in his head. “But why does Bill want to meet him at DAK? Bill complains about DAK all the time. Too hot, kinda boring, too many guests in Pandora…”

“Bill doesn’t want to meet him at DAK,” Bev said, staring at Richie’s forehead as if willing Richie to get the message. “ _You’re_ gonna meet him at DAK. It’s his favorite park. He told me that once while he was looking at the Jungle rack in MK costuming.”

“Oh.” Bev’s plan was coming together in Ben’s mind. It was simple, but honestly pretty genius. “Eddie will agree to go with Bill because he trusts Bill, right? He probably wants to vent about what happened tonight.”

“Right,” Bev agreed, “but when Eddie actually shows up, Richie’ll be there, and they’ll be forced to talk.”

“That’s kinda mean,” Ben pointed out. “What if he genuinely needs space?”

“It’s healthier for the two of them to talk it out while it’s still fresh, I think,” Bev looked thoughtful. “I get what you’re saying, but this doesn’t seem like the kind of situation that will be made better by space, you know?”

Richie had been watching the two of them go back and forth like he was a spectator at a tennis match, but he wasn’t good at staying quiet for long, and so jumped back in with aplomb. “I’m still here, you know. You don’t have to talk around me.”

“Sorry,” Bev said, “but do you disagree?”

Richie shook his head. Half of his curls were still plastered down with sweat, but the rest of them swayed side to side with the rest of him. “No, I think it’s worth a shot.”

“Good, because I already sent the text. Also, Kevin’s coming back. Switch with me.” She yanked Richie up and out of the chair, and reclaimed her spot. Kevin kept his visit brief, looking at Richie with clear unease in his eyes while he slid chicken down skewers and then darting away again, presumably to get more meat.

“Did he respond?” Richie asked immediately once Kevin was gone.

Bev pulled her phone out again. “He wants to know why Bill doesn’t ask him himself.”

“Type ‘because he’s having sex’,” Richie told her, peering down over her shoulder.

“Speaking of Bill,” Ben cut in, thinking of ways to get back to his regularly scheduled date now that Richie’s situation was almost taken care of, “don’t you need a ride? Can you afford an Uber from here?”

“I didn’t bring money,” Richie admitted. “I didn’t think I’d have to.”

Ben considered their options. “Well, we could call Stan and see if he’s available.”

Richie bit down on one of his knuckles to stifle a laugh. “Yeah, okay, Benny Boy. You go ahead and do that.” He tore his eyes from Bev’s cellphone for a moment and looked at Ben with glee in his eyes. Ben was relieved to see a little bit of laughter back in his friend’s expression. Richie wasn’t a person that was well suited to melancholy.

Ben steeled himself, and then picked up his own phone and dialed his roommate. He put the phone on speaker, and as soon as it started ringing, Richie’s attention was glued to it, as if it were a bad car accident waiting to happen. Ben made a mental note to never get in the car with Richie if this was how he was going to be about little distractions.

The phone rang for long enough that Ben began to think Mike wouldn’t pick up, but he did - on the last ring.

“This better be important.” Mike’s voice was low and rough, and his breathing was heavy. Ben looked up at Richie, who was shaking with suppressed laughter, and then back down to the phone.

“Uh. Richie’s here.” Ben began, looking from Bev to Richie in an attempt to try and figure out how he wanted to word his request.

“On your date?” Mike asked. In the background, Stan and Bill’s protests were audible - Stan’s moreso than Bill’s. “Dude, I didn’t think you were into that kind of thing.”

“Ben here’s a real swinger.” Richie couldn’t help but chime in. “No, but I’m trying to make a grand exit here, so, uh, could you put Stan my man on the phone, Mikey?”

There was the distinct sound of Mike fumbling with the phone, and a loud “Fuck no” from Stan. 

“Yeah, he’ll be right on,” Mike said after a moment. “Make it QUICK, though, Tozier.”

“Eddie says he’ll meet you,” Bev said, still engrossed in her own text conversation. “But you have to buy him a cream cheese pretzel.”

“Those things are like $4.99,” Richie protested.

Ben waved a hand in front of his face. “Focus, Rich. I wouldn’t put it past Stan to know how to kill you over the phone.”

“If not, I’ll certainly kill him when I see him next.” Stan was on the line, and it sounded like his teeth were gritted. Whatever mood the three of them had struck up was almost certainly dead now. “Richie, did you hear that? You’re dead.”

“Great,” Richie said agreeably, “but in the meantime, I need a ride.”

Stan’s responding sigh was so deep and long it made a crackling noise through the phone. “I thought you and Eddie would go with your Jungle friends.”

“Yeah, about me and Eddie…” Richie was obviously more nervous to tell Stan about his goof than he had been in telling Ben and Bev. Ben wondered offhandedly what that meant about Richie’s relationship with Stan.

“I saw what happened,” Stan said simply. “It wasn’t your fault, okay? Don’t get in your head about that.”

Richie grabbed the phone, as if being closer to it would make his point clearer to Stan. “But--”

“No but. It was an accident that hurt his feelings. You don’t freak out when you have accidents that hurt my feelings, so you can chill out about this.”

“This is important, Stan,” Richie said quietly, mouth just about pressed to the phone.

“I don’t know why you’re prioritizing this all of a sudden.” Stan was picking up speed. Apparently, he wasn’t finished being angry with Richie after all. “I like that he makes you happy, Richie, but you can’t expect any one thing to bring you out of whatever mental funk you’re in. Dating Eddie Kaspbrak isn’t going to save your life. Why don’t you try auditioning for stuff maybe, like you moved down here to do - or applying for trainer or coordinator? It doesn’t all have to be about--”

“Can you pick me up?” Richie interrupted. Stan’s little monologue had zapped him back into robot mode. “Or do you know anyone that can? I feel bad about intruding on Benverly for as long as I have.”

“I’ll come.” A new voice was on the phone, now - Bill had taken over from Stan. “Meet you by check-in in 20 minutes, okay Rich?”

“Roger,” Richie said neutrally. “Thanks, Billiam.”

“You’ll pay me for it in tours,” Bill said, apparently nonplussed. Apparently, they’d all had enough time to cool off regarding their sexual exploits. “Bev, you okay?”

Ben’s chest seized as he looked over to gauge her reaction, but he had nothing to worry about. She was smiling. “I’m great, honey. Thanks for askin’.”

“Love you,” he said. The sound of shuffling was apparent on the other end of the phone; he was putting clothes on. “Richie, 20 minutes.”

“Thanks,” Richie said dully, and the connection beeped out. Bill had hung up.

There was a moment of silence after that. Richie handed Ben his phone back, and Ben took it wordlessly, biting back the avalanche of questions that he had after hearing Stan on the phone.

Bev was bolder than him. “This isn’t just about Eddie, is it?”

“It’s a lot about Eddie,” Richie said, picking at his fingernails.

“You genuinely like him, right?” Bev asked, holding out her phone for emphasis. “I don’t want to be a part of this if you’re just stringing him along for the sake of your self-esteem.”

“He’s the best thing in my life right now,” Richie responded honestly, looking at her in a way that made Ben momentarily jealous - not of anything romantic, but of the understanding that seemed to transpire between them. 

“It’s gonna be okay, Richie,” Ben found himself saying. He had no idea what compelled those words to fall out of his mouth, but he was committed enough to finishing his sentence that he pushed on. “Whatever you need, we’re here, okay?”

Richie looked between the two of them contemplatively. For once, he wasn’t trying to contort his face in a way that would mask what he was really feeling; no, his expression was just open, and...tired.

“I’m sorry that I got in the way of your date,” he said again. “I’m not sorry for eating your shrimp, though, Bev.”

Bev shrugged. “I’m always down to offer a shrimp to a friend in need.”

At that, Richie looked over the rest of the table with mild interest. “How about a potsticker?”

“Goodbye, Richie,” Bev said quickly, pulling the rest of the potstickers in towards her.

“You gonna be okay?” Ben asked before Richie could turn to leave. Richie caught his eye briefly and smiled - a genuine smile, as far as Ben could tell.

“I just can’t get out of my own way,” he said, “but Bill’s got me now. Carry on, Ben Handsome.”

“Godspeed, Richie Tozier,” Ben called, waving fondly as Richie pushed back through the restaurant, drawing stares and whispers from the guests that had just been seated.

“Ten o’clock tomorrow!” Bev yelled. “Don’t be late!” Richie shot her a quick thumbs up, but didn’t turn around. They watched him until he’d left the restaurant, presumably to loiter in one of the gift shops until Bill showed up.

As soon as he was gone, Ben felt a coldness settle in his stomach. How was he supposed to bring the date back from this?

“That was really cool of you,” Bev said quietly, before he could lose himself in anxious thoughts. “Not many guys would have been okay with helping someone else like that in the middle of a date.”

“I’m really sorry,” Ben tried, “I should have asked you--”

“We’re good.” Bev shook her head, smiling softly. “You don’t have to ask my permission to be kind to people, Ben. And I really do appreciate you being kind.”

“Most people are kind,” Ben shrugged, cutting into his chicken in an attempt to alleviate his embarrassment.

“No,” Bev said. She reached across the table and touched his hand meaningfully. “They’re not.”

“Dessert’s here,” called Kevin from a couple of tables away. He was headed over with a delicious looking bread pudding, some caramel banana sauce, and two spoons. Ben was a little surprised (and sad) that they were at the dessert stage of things already, but when he checked his phone, he saw that it was indeed nine o’clock.

The music began to play before he was able to register fully what nine o’clock meant.

 _“Serpents, spiders...tail of a rat…”_ Madame Leota’s voice boomed through the hotel speakers. Bev turned towards the window in wonder and delight.

“Will we be able to see…?!” she asked breathlessly, and immediately had her question answered by the first firework lighting its way up and over Cinderella’s Castle in the distance. Kevin set down the pudding, and Ben smiled into his plate.

Luck was pretty relative, and less important or applicable than compassion and hard work, but even in spite of all of the shit that had gotten in the way tonight, Ben Hanscom could pretty safely say that his luck was turning around.

When Beverly reached across to grab his hands during the Ursula section of the fireworks, he upgraded his thought. His luck was definitely better now than it had ever been before.

He hoped with all his heart that said luck would spread itself over the rest of his friends, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *DAK = Disney's Animal Kingdom. Just a little employee shorthand :)
> 
> happy birthday DAK! you're my favorite park, too, ily. we've got Richie coming up in an Animal Kingdom chapter next.
> 
> beleaguer my Richie characterization in the comments or at skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com


	7. "Strangers Like Me" (Richie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He should have listened to Stan. He’d allowed too much to ride on this. It was feeling very make-or-break."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heck y'all...I know I promised 8 chapters but suddenly I'm feeling like I could draw it out? lemme know what you'd be into!

**RICHIE TOZIER**   
**ATTRACTIONS CAST at the WORLD FAMOUS JUNGLE CRUISE**   
**currently**   
**PACING ANXIOUSLY OUTSIDE OF KILIMANJARO SAFARIS IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM**   
**NOVEMBER 1ST**   
**9:50 A.M.**

It was just about 10 a.m. in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and Richie Tozier had been perched on a bench just next to the Harambe market for about five minutes, alternating his time between sweating, watching the drumming performance going on in the square, and losing himself in his anxiety.

Stan had put him through the wringer earlier over his choice of wardrobe, and now that Richie was actually experiencing the expanse of African savannah that was DAK, he was beginning to see Stan’s point. Maybe his black, long-sleeved crewneck Jack Skellington shirt hadn’t been the best idea, even when paired with shorts. He’d decided to wear it based on the important and immediate qualification that it was the only shirt he owned that didn’t smell kind of suspect (it had been a minute since he’d done laundry), but he obviously hadn’t thought through the fact that he’d smell after sweating anyway. Great. Things were already looking up.

He needed this to go well.

When he’d moved down to Florida with Stan (they’d connected in one of their gen-eds in college and had been virtually inseparable ever since), he’d had big dreams of putting his theatre degree to good use somewhere in Orlando. It didn’t matter where. Theme park entertainment, any of the zillions of theatres downtown, whatever - there were opportunities and he was going to seize them. Doors were going to open for him. It wasn’t going to be like it would be if he moved to New York like everyone else - EVERYONE got rejected in New York. He was going to make it big by doing something different.

Then, he’d been assigned to Shitstorm of the Caribbean, and whatever motivating spark was pushing him forward abruptly went out like a candle in the ocean wind. Pirates was a soul-sucking attraction to work anyway, but the first fall he was there was the worst fall that Pirates had maybe ever seen. The ride was old and broken, and its sensors decided sometime in mid-September that the smoke effect with the Davy Jones projection was actually smoke, and that every time it went off (so: every 2-4 minutes), the ride was Actually On Fire. 

As was probably to be expected, regularly pulling boats of 50-ish confused tourists towards evacuation spots took a toll on his mental health. He began dreading going to work, which led to him spending all of the time he wasn’t spending at work dreading having to work again later, which led to him dreading getting out of bed.

Moving to Jungle made things easier, but not by much. The dread surrounding going to work lessened significantly, but the dread around getting out of bed did not. When he talked to his mother about it (and BOY, did he talk to Maggie about it: 3-4 times a week via phone or FaceTime, bare minimum), she offered two suggestions: either come home and see if things improved, or see a counselor.

Richie didn’t really care for either of those solutions. They both felt like giving up. Instead, he lied to his parents and told them he was feeling better (he was pretty sure Mags wasn’t convinced on that, but Went definitely was - he’d always been a little tone-deaf, but, you know, endearingly tone-deaf) and just plugged along, not doing anything that could be considered progress but not curling up and letting the sadness consume him, either. He just...existed, for better or for worse.

Stan hated it. Stan fucking _despised_ it. Stan had been badgering him for months about auditions, applying for trainer, and a whole bunch of shit along those lines. Nothing sounded appealing. Applying for trainer and/or coordinator made him feel like he was going to be stuck doing the same shit he was currently doing forever, and auditioning was just too much to bear thinking about. He spent more time trying to convince Stan that he was happy where he was than he did on anything remotely progressive...and that was fine. He could continue like this until the next thing came along. Being a popular Skipper was enough, he could probably survive on Ramen for at least two or three more years before his metabolism finally caught up with him, and although he wasn’t having sex or really even dating, he wasn’t fussed about it - the women in Orlando were crazy immature, for the most part, and the men had some really antiquated ideas about what it meant to be a gay male. (Not that he knew very much about that himself, admittedly - he was so far only bisexual in theory, not in practice.)

And then there was Eddie Kaspbrak.

The day he met Eddie Kaspbrak had been an immensely terrible one. It had taken all that he had to drag himself to work that afternoon, and then almost immediately after clocking in, he’d pulled a ‘Go See Management’ task that had just been thirty minutes of being berated by Leadership for his ad-libbing. He hadn’t gotten a point or had to write up a witness statement, but it had still sucked majorly, and he’d gone back to work in a really sour and careless mental state…

...and had been immediately punished by that goddamned bitch in that goddamned ECV. Fuck, he hated non-bote positions. The woman in question didn’t really even need it that much - it was obvious that she was playing up an injury to try and get through lines faster (and Richie couldn’t resist making digs on that type of guest to their face, because exploiting a system that was specifically set up for disabled people was just so fucking vile he could spit, so he could probably assume that she’d run him down on purpose). The cut had been deep and scary, and he’d been at a solid eight on the Richter scale as he made his way down to the tunnels. He’d told them he could fix it, but there was absolutely no way - he didn’t know shit about first-aid, and he’d have to go back up and tell them, and they’d be so disappointed…

When he saw Eddie, his first impulse was to avert his eyes. Of course the universe would try to kick him while he was down by sending a sweet-faced, doe-eyed little heartbreaker his way while he was in the midst of a panic. Fucking typical. The kid would leave soon enough, he figured; he’d just look through Richie like the rest of the eighty billion cast members that worked at MK.

But Eddie stayed. Eddie looked right at him, saw what he was doing, and _stayed_.

It was the first time that Richie had allowed himself to feel hope in almost two years.

He’d raced home that day, tearing crazily out of the MK cast parking lot so that he could get to the apartment, burst into Stan’s room, and tell him the news. He imagined Stan being happy for him - excited, even, in his subdued Stan way, but instead, he’d gotten a warning.

“Don’t pin all your hopes on this, Richie, okay?” Stan had said softly, looking down at Richie with concerned eyes. “This kid’s not gonna save your life. In fact, you might not ever see him again.”

Richie knew that Stan was right, but that didn’t stop him from clinging desperately to that Eddie Kaspbrak hope. Even now, he was reeling from the admission of reciprocated feelings - it was more than he deserved, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so...not depressed. The whole thing was a ray of light in his otherwise gray life, and he persisted with it in spite of Stan’s warnings about what might happen if Eddie decided to duck out.

He should have listened to Stan. He’d allowed too much to ride on this. It was feeling very make-or-break.

At 10:00 sharp, Richie saw Eddie peering through the throng of spectators in the main Harambe square. He was wearing a white Baymax tank-top and frowning at a group of teenage girls that were recording their purchase of a pineapple slice and a Jalapeno pretzel on their phones. Richie distracted himself from his nerves by forcing himself to wonder instead what exactly Eddie was frowning at - the phones, or the bizarre food choices.

When Richie looked back up, Eddie was looking right at him.

Show time.

Eddie immediately colored red all the way down to his chest (it was especially prominent behind the Baymax tank) and started trying to push his way out and away from the crowd around the vendors. Richie jumped up off of his bench and followed - and it didn’t take long to grab him by the arm. Richie’s legs were long, and he was better able to wind his way through big groups of people than Eddie (probably because they could see Richie coming - Eddie suffered for his height in that respect). Eddie tensed in his grip, and Richie covertly steered them off to the side towards the bakery window.

“Was this a setup?” Eddie asked, voice gruff.

“Of course it was a setup,” Richie admitted, feeling like honesty was probably going to be the best policy here. “You think Bill Denbrough’s gonna wake up before noon for your ass? No. He’s busy making up for lost time by boning down with his boyfriends, so...it’s me.”

Eddie wrinkled his nose. “Lost time?”

“Date crash, whatever.” Richie waved the thought away, and tightened his grip on Eddie’s arm a little bit. “Please let me explain what happened. I’m not asking you to like me afterwards or laugh at whatever stupid ass jokes I end up making because I’m nervous or whatever. Just. Let me explain.”

Eddie stared back up at him, obviously considering his options. He raked his eyes down Richie’s form, slow and calculating, and Richie felt a little bit like he was on stage under a spotlight. He crossed his arms over his chest, silently cursing his outfit choice. He looked like he’d just rolled out of Hot Topic - pasty, disoriented, and dressed all in black, whereas Eddie was a literal angel on Earth AGAIN in that tank top and dark jeans. How had he ever come to the conclusion that Eddie might stay with him? He was so far out of his league. (He was always so far out of his league. Everything in his life was out of his league.)

“Okay,” Eddie finally acquiesced. “Let’s ride the Safari and talk. It’ll be less hot. I love this park, but it’s like Satan’s asscrack half the time.”

Richie laughed weakly. “Satan himself wouldn’t bother with Harambe Village. Too sweaty. Not enough attractions with AC. You’ve gotta go to Tough To Be a Bug to get any relief at all, and then they practically assault you in there.”

Eddie visibly shuddered. “Less talking about bugs, specifically those bugs, and more getting in line for KSR.”

“Deal.” Richie shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand and peered up at the wait time sign. 10 minutes. Excellent. He supposed that shouldn’t be surprising - Pandora had taken a lot of KSR’s old traffic, and it was a random weekday at the beginning of November - but he was satisfied with it all the same. Any more than 20 minutes in that dusty line and he was ready to run for the hills, whether or not there were cute boys around to keep him company.

They joined the line behind a nice family of three - a mother, a daughter, and a disgruntled, distracted dad. Typical Disney fare. Eddie audibly snorted after seeing ketchup stains on the dad’s blue and white golf polo, and Richie did a quick impression of what he imagined the moment of spillage might have been like behind the guy’s back, hoping it would get a laugh out of Eddie. It didn’t, but his expression in watching it was fond instead of repulsed, which was a good sign.

“You wanted to talk, right?” Eddie finally asked after they’d traipsed after the family for a little while. “So, talk.”

“Oh.” Richie didn’t function well when put on the spot. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down. His glasses were starting to get dirty. Fuck. “Yeah. I, um, wanted to apologize.”

“Be more specific,” Eddie suggested.

“I didn’t mean to kiss that guy,” Richie said quickly. “I assumed you’d rejoined Stan and Bill, and I was moving so fast...I really messed up.”

He looked back up in time to see Eddie deflate like a balloon animal.

“Yeah,” Eddie said softly, “me too.”

That was hardly the reaction Richie was expecting. No beratement at all? Something was up.

“For what?” he asked, trying to surreptitiously wipe his glasses off on his sleeve so that he could see Eddie better. He succeeded not in cleaning them but instead in knocking them off, and they predictably flew right into the disgruntled dad. THAT got a laugh out of Eddie - he clapped his hands over his mouth and giggled insanely as Richie gave the dad a sheepish smile and picked up the blur that he (fortunately correctly) assumed was his glasses.

Once he got his glasses back on, he peered immediately over at Eddie, trying to gauge how he was feeling. It looked like Richie’s clumsiness had actually been a blessing in disguise. Eddie was looking a lot calmer post-laugh.

“I don’t mean to be...mean,” he said, meeting Richie’s eyes. “I know I reacted a little harshly last night. It’s like I can’t escape her - becoming her, or whatever.”

“Her?” Richie asked.

“My mom.” Eddie didn’t explain further, and Richie didn’t press. He knew what it was like to have people digging invasively into your personal shit, and he wasn’t about to be that person for someone else.

The conversation was forced to take a quick pause as they reached the loading dock for the ride. Richie, in an attempt to be chivalrous, let Eddie on first so he could be closer to the animals on the far side. Eddie rolled his eyes at him, but ultimately climbed on without a fight, and they were off in less than a minute. Richie made a mental note to bring up KSR’s efficiency the next time his Jungle coordinators got a little too full of themselves.

“Anyway,” Eddie continued once they were settled and moving into the Okapi forest, “I wasn’t mad because you accidentally kissed someone else. I was mad because that specific someone else was friends with Pan.”

Richie blinked down at Eddie, and then at the two weird orange antelope (bongos?) they were passing. It was getting harder and harder to keep himself from making a weird joke about animals. “No offense, Eds, but what the fuck does that mean?”

Eddie blew a piece of hair out of his face. He wasn’t paying attention to the animals at all, which Richie assumed was a bad sign. “I don’t know. I just...I get that a lot, you know? The Pan thing?”

“Sure,” Richie said cautiously, “not that any of the Pans are in your league, Spaghetti. You know that, right?”

“I don’t know about that,” Eddie deflected, “but like...that’s not the kind of guy I want to be, you know? They’re so...they’re not…”

“They’re not nice,” Richie finished, understanding exactly what he was talking about. A lot of the guys that were friends with Pan fell into that misogynistic gay guy category, and Richie was almost relieved to hear Eddie say that he didn’t like it. Hypermasculinity wasn’t something Richie could exactly provide, nor was it a concept he really had any interest in at all.

“They’re not nice,” Eddie agreed, “and when I saw you kiss him, some weird part of my brain was like...this guy you really like thinks you’re _like that_ , and I’ve spent my whole life trying to break out and not become this crazy, hateful person and--”

“I don’t think you’re like that,” Richie said quickly before Eddie could go further down the self-destructive path he seemed to be on. “I wouldn’t want you if you were.”

Eddie didn’t look at him; instead, he fixed his gaze on the hippos their enthusiastic safari guide was pointing out. “Want me, huh? So it’s not just a hit it and quit it kind of deal for you?”

Richie almost choked on air. “What? No, dude, what the hell gave you that idea?!”

“I’ve never really had anything more than that,” Eddie said softly. “Growing up closeted in Ohio was one thing, moving here was like...the exact opposite of that thing, but it’s just been hard to find something meaningful. You know?”

The din of the ride seemed to fade to the background like they were in some kind of tacky 90’s rom-com as he met Richie’s eyes - and Richie saw all of his own insecurities mirrored there in Eddie’s gaze, every single one, and it broke his heart a little bit.

Eddie Kaspbrak didn’t deserve to wallow like Richie Tozier wallowed. He was so much better than that.

“Eddie.” Richie spoke as clearly and firmly as he could, biting down every impulse he had to make a height joke now that they were out at the giraffes and pressing forward instead with feelings and honesty. “You met my friends. You met Stan. Do you think I let casuals meet _Stan?_ ”

“I hope not,” Eddie answered honestly. “I always feel like I’m in an interrogation room when I’m with Stan.”

“He’s protective of me,” Richie said, “for whatever stupid reason. He doesn’t want me to get hurt.”

“You’re not the one that’s going to get hurt here,” Eddie challenged loudly.

The family that was in front of them in line all turned around in their seats to stare. The dad looked like he wanted to call them a nasty name, but was holding off in front of his kid. The mother smiled meekly at them and asked them to “please be a little quieter?” and the daughter scowled.

“Sorry,” Richie and Eddie chorused in unison. The family turned back around, appeased.

The next time Richie spoke, he tried to dial it back - to be as quiet and sweet as his naturally loud temperament would allow. “Do you want to be with me, Kaspbrak?”

Eddie hesitated before answering, and immediately, Richie’s mind jumped to the worst possible conclusion. Well, fuck. Rejection. It was convenient that this was happening while they were in front of the crocodiles. Richie could just dive right in and save himself a whole lot of embarrassment and general bad feeling.

“I do,” he asked shakily, and Richie almost shouted in relief. _He wants me, he wants me, he **wants** me._ “Just...I think I need more time.”

Okay. Richie could work with that. It was almost better that way, actually. If Stan’s warnings were anything to go by, he probably needed more time, too.

“I’ll wait,” Richie promised. “I’ll wait for-fucking-ever, Eds, watch--”

“Because I don’t...my mo--I’ve got a lot of shit,” Eddie continued, rambling about things that Richie presumed would make sense to him in time.

“Me too,” Richie nodded, carefully sliding over in the seat so that his arm was pressed up against Eddie’s. “I do, too. For example, did you know I’m actually in a relationship right now?”

Eddie froze next to him. “What.”

“With your mother,” Richie continued gleefully, “we’re--”

“Oh my fucking God.” Eddie shoved him away, groaning. “Bad joke, asshole. What was that thing that Bill said to you that time?”

Richie rolled his eyes. He’d had issues with his brakes on the Tomorrowland Speedway one time. One time! “Beep beep.”

“Beep beep, you sweaty nerd,” Eddie smiled, pressing the heel of his hand softly to Richie’s arm on both beeps like he was hitting a car horn.

“Savage little mouth,” Richie sighed, slinging his arm over and behind Eddie’s head. “Keep throwing those insults, kid. They really do it for me.”

“You only like me because I saved you from modified duty that time,” Eddie pointed out, adjusting quietly to having Richie’s hand all but grazing his hair.

“You helped me,” Richie corrected, letting his hand slide down to squeeze at Eddie’s shoulder and trying not to think about potential repercussions of touching, especially now that Eddie had expressed interest in moving slow. “Straight out of all my doctor fantasies. Very sexy.”

“Why are you still frontline cast, anyway?” Eddie asked, seemingly taking the contact in stride. “You’re like...a big deal in the Jungle. Shouldn’t you have been promoted?”

Richie couldn’t help but wince. “I’ve been kind of getting in my own way a lot lately.”

Eddie gave him a fond, exasperated look. “No kidding.”

“Ugh. I thought I’d succeeded in distracting you from thinking about last night’s fuckup. Turns out you’ve been waiting to use it against me this whole time. Damn it,” Richie accused, raising his eyebrows for effect.

“An elephant never forgets,” Eddie said solemnly, pointing to the creatures that were stomping around in the water hole outside of their vehicle, and they both burst out laughing, much to the chagrin of the angry family in front of them .

They weren’t with that family for much longer, fortunately. When the safari ended, the three of them made a beeline for Asia, leaving Richie and Eddie to mill around by the entrance to the Pangani Trail. 

“It’s almost 11,” Eddie said, looking at his Apple Watch thoughtfully. “You’re free today, right?”

“Free as America,” Richie confirmed, putting on his best offensive redneck voice. Eddie kicked him in the shin.

“Every time I think I’m starting to like you, you go and pull shit like that,” Eddie grumbled, but the corners of his mouth betrayed how he was actually feeling.

“You’re strangely aroused, I can tell,” Richie joked. His chest felt a million pounds lighter. It hadn’t been the outcome that he’d wanted, but it was enough. Good things were coming down the pipeline, Eddie Kaspbrak chief among them.

“Before you make me change my mind: do you want to see Festival of the Lion King with me?” Eddie finally managed to ask after spluttering for a full two minutes about ‘not being strangely aroused’ or whatever lie he was trying to sell himself.

“Are you saying you’re... _feeling the love tonight?_ ” Richie asked before he could help himself.

“ _Be prepared_ for me to ditch your ass on the swamp throughway to Pandora,” Eddie warned, marching on ahead towards the theatre.

Festival was magical. It was always magical, but there was something about seeing it with someone you hadn’t seen it yet with - to experience it the way they were experiencing it - that made Richie’s bones sing with happiness. When the animals came out during Circle of Life, Richie turned to watch Eddie, and realized in seeing the joy in his friend's (partner's? boyfriend's?) eyes that Stan was both right and wrong about their relationship.

He was right about Eddie not being Richie’s saving grace. Eddie wasn’t saving Richie; Eddie could barely save himself. Richie was going to have to save Richie, which was a problem for a whole other time - a whole other Richie.

Stan was wrong, though, about things being temporary.

When Richie felt Eddie’s slender fingers slip between his longer, coarser ones during the bird ballet of Can You Feel The Love Tonight, he knew that for better or for worse, this wasn’t going away.

There was a whole lot of laundry in his future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the nonsense about points in the Richie getting disciplined paragraph is all part of Disney's elaborate employee control freakiness
> 
> look for Festival of the Lion King videos on YouTube if you want to feel Great
> 
> DAK is the best park and the only one I care about. The costumes are comfy, you get to walk wherever you want as a CM, and the animals always give you a run for your money
> 
> change my mind in the comments or at skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com


	8. "What's This?" (Bill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Proposed new name for the group chat: Santa Tozier and his ho, ho, hoes!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's the Christmas Episode! we've had everyone have their fairytale meet & greets....and now it's time to examine that love at first sight trope a little more seriously, so buckle in!

**BILL DENBROUGH - STILL GUEST RELATIONS, MAGIC KINGDOM**

**currently at the MAGIC KINGDOM CHRISTMAS PARTY AS A GUEST**

**DECEMBER 15th**

**7:15 P.M.**

 

“Eds.”

 

“What.”

 

“I have a proposition for you.”

 

“If you make that joke about jingling your balls one more time, _Richard_ \--”

 

“I wasn’t going to do that again this time!” Richie protested, wearing an expression that indicated that he was totally going to do that again this time. Bill winked, swung his backpack over his shoulder, and opened it, digging around through all of his various pairs of sunglasses and bottles of sunscreen until he found what he was looking for.

 

“Here.” He tossed Richie the tye-dyed Santa hat he’d picked up at a yard sale when he’d visited back home in early September. He’d grabbed it especially FOR Richie; his friend’s face had popped into his mind the instant he’d laid eyes on the cursed thing. “Some balls to jingle. Or, ball, as it were.”

 

Richie’s face lit up, and he immediately jammed the hat on to his head. His hair curled out and around it in a way that made him look a little bit like a bush that had been set on fire. “Proposed new name for the group chat: Santa Tozier and his ho, ho, hoes!”

 

“The group chat will be immediately deleted if you even think that phrase again,” Stan informed him flatly, eyeing the hat with an eyebrow raise that meant that he was either amused or disturbed. Bill couldn’t tell which.

 

Actually, Bill was having a bit of trouble reading a lot of Stan’s moods. He had way less of a handle on him than he'd imagined he had in the beginning. In retrospect, it was kind of funny how he’d thought they’d all known one another so well right out of the gate. The group dynamic was still good, for the most part, but they all still had a lot to learn about each other, and as such it was clear to everyone at this point that their convergence was hardly the freaky cosmic happenstance that at least Bev had taken it for.

 

That fact was on all of their minds, Bill was pretty sure - but they were nothing if not a stubborn and persistent bunch, and so they marched along, determined to have fun at this Christmas party.

 

“We’re getting cocoa and cookies first thing, right?” asked Bev excitedly, bouncing a little as one of the greeters fastened her wristband.

 

“Are we?” Ben was chewing anxiously on his lip. Bill pretended not to be affected by the nervous energy that was emanating off of his poor friend.

 

“It’s free,” Mike shrugged, “why not. First treat spot is at Casey’s Corner.”

 

“And after that? By the way, is everybody in?” Eddie stood up on his tiptoes, trying to see if everyone was accounted for. He looked to Richie, the tallest of their little group, for help, but Richie was still preoccupied with the hat, so he switched over to staring pleadingly at Bill.

 

“Uh.” Bill counted quickly in his head - he could see Stan with his wristband, Bev, Richie, Eddie, the greeter was finishing putting a band on Ben, and...where was Mike?

 

“We’re all set.” Mike was behind him. He spoke clearly and stepped forward, clapping a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “I was wondering if you thought we should hit up Princess Fairytale Hall after Casey’s? I know that there’s rare characters out and about.”

 

Eddie stared up at Mike’s face, and then back down at the hand that was still down on his shoulder. Bill crossed his arms over his chest, willing back a snarl. This wasn’t the first time in the last couple of weeks that Mike had been a little extra distant, a little extra touchy with other people. Bill had taken a lot of flack from Beverly in the wake of their relationship about his possessiveness and penchant for jockeying himself into a more dominant position in his interactions with others, so he was trying to be cool, but it wouldn’t last much longer. He was going to snap and ask Mike what the fuck was going on, and it was probably going to happen sooner rather than later.

 

Bill’s only solace in the fact that Mike’s hand was now making its way down Eddie’s arm was the fact that Richie was blatantly unhappy about it, too. He was hovering behind Eddie in a way that would have been distinctly threatening, if he were anyone but Richie, and his eyes were locked on Mike’s hand with an unearthly sort of intensity.

 

“Um.” Eddie’s voice brought Bill back to Earth, kind of. His stomach was still kind of twisted up, but it would subside, probably, as long as Mike kept the weird interactions to a minimum. Richie’s gaze, on the other hand, only seemed to grow MORE intense, to the point where Bill was genuinely concerned that Mike was going to be able to feel it if Richie didn’t dial things back soon. “I think Flynn Ryder’s there, if I remember everyone’s schedule correctly. That of interest to anyone?”

 

“Yes,” Stan said, a little too quickly. Bill crossed his arms tighter and squeezed his eyes shut for a split second.

 

“Okay, so we can do that, and then maybe head to Ad-Lib?” Ben was still a little pale, but that was irrelevant in the face of the fact that he was also mercifully sane when the rest of them were so clearly not. “I want to hear Richie go through the Jingle Cruise spiel.”

 

Richie blinked and tore his eyes away from Mike’s hand, which had finally, FINALLY retracted from Eddie’s arm. “I’m flattered, Hanscom, but I’m not on the clock. We can do Jingle, and I’ll probably heckle the shit out of whoever our skip is, but if you want to catch one of my botes you gotta do it on your own time.”

 

“Still good with me.” Ben smiled weakly, obviously aware of the quiet, crackling tension in the air and wanting desperately to diffuse it. “After that, we can talk about mapping out the rest of our night? The Christmas Wishes show is at 9, and I’d like to try and catch the parade…”

 

“I love the parade!” Bev was right there with him. “What do you say, boys?”

 

“All good by me.” Mike was amiable as ever. “Y’all?”

 

“Y’all? You’re not even from the South, Mikey, what the hell. I’m good for whatever,” Richie said, although once again, his face suggested that he was still apprehensive.

 

“Same,” agreed Stan, giving Richie a quick, meaningful look. Beside him, Eddie was also nodding.

 

“Let’s go to PFH, you guys. I know people. We’ll cut the line. It’ll be great.”

 

“Casey’s first,” Bev insisted. “Sugar cookies. Need it. C’mon.”

 

She grabbed for Ben’s hand and tugged, and with almost no resistance, Ben stumbled along behind her. That left the rest of them no choice but to try and keep up, which made for a less romantic stroll down Main Street than Bill had been hoping for.

 

Why was he letting himself get so disappointed by the little things tonight?

 

“We’ll have time later for you to play tour guide, yaknow.” Richie had slowed down his walk to keep pace with Bill. He seemed to be the only person in tune with Bill’s feelings at the moment, which was absolutely bizarre, given that their relationship over the past three years had mostly been built on brief, comic interactions and a series of mostly work related favors. “Although as ideas go, that one’s not exactly stellar.”

 

“Why not?” Bill squinted over at Richie, who was looking at the back of Eddie’s neck in front of him with longing in his eyes. “I mean, if you’ve got info about the park, might as well dispense it, no?”

 

“It makes non-park folks a little antsy sometimes,” Richie responded neatly, looking away from Eddie and between Bill and Stan. Bill grimaced, and swallowed hard.

 

“Has he said--?”

 

“No, but I know him.” Richie sped up his walk a little bit, obviously hoping to keep up a little bit better with Eddie. “It’s just a suggestion.”

 

“Noted,” Bill muttered, watching with no small amount of envy as Richie sidled up to Eddie and slid his huge, clumsy hand into Eddie’s neat little one. Stan and Mike were way too far ahead for Bill to be able to catch up with at this point, and given how the night was going so far, he wasn’t really sure if he wanted to catch up at all.

 

Bev was already halfway through her serving of sugar cookies by the time Bill entered Casey’s Corner. Ben was beside her, holding a cup of hot cocoa that obviously didn’t belong to him, and he shrugged apologetically as Bill walked towards them.

 

“Good, Bev?” Bill smiled quietly at her as she worked to swallow the bite of cookie she had in her mouth. His relationship with Bev, at least, was consistent.

 

“Perfect.” Crumbs sprayed from her mouth as she talked, but Bill and Ben were unfazed. In fact, Ben’s gaze seemed to grow more fond, if that was even possible. (Bill was SO glad they’d found each other. He couldn’t have asked for a better situation for his friend.)

 

“Seconded!” Richie’s mouth was just straight up full of cookie. Apparently, he couldn’t be bothered to swallow before speaking. Bill wasn't surprised, but he couldn't help but be a little disappointed, if only because he'd just had cookie crumbs spit in his direction. “They got the good shit this year, not the cheap shit. Hallelujah. If the Snickerdoodles at Harbor House are even half this good, I’m gonna cum in my pants.”

 

“That all it takes?” Eddie was wearing a small little smile, and his ears were red in a way that suggested that even he couldn’t quite believe the question that had come out of his mouth. Richie turned his head slowly to stare over at him wondrously, like he was a Christmas present that Richie hadn’t expected to get.

 

“Eds, are you trying to seduce me in a hot dog restaurant?” To anyone else, that would sound like an incredulous joke, but Bill knew that Richie was excited and totally sincere. There was really no place more fitting for a Richie Tozier seduction than a restaurant that sold overpriced phallic foods.

 

“That depends,” Eddie said, blush spreading to his cheeks, “is it working?”

 

Bill was hit, suddenly and extremely, with a wave of jealousy that was relatively akin to nausea.

 

“No fucking way.” Bill pushed his way towards the exit of the restaurant. “You assholes. Gonna be gross and ruin everything.”

 

Richie yelled something indecipherable back at him (his mouth was obviously full of food again) but Bill was long gone. He exited the doors of the restaurant and stared down Main Street, trying to ignore whatever emotional ache had taken up residence in his bones.

 

He felt a familiar hand on his shoulder after about a minute and a half. “Bill. What’s up.”

 

“I’m okay, Stan.” Bill covered Stan’s hand with his own for a quick second, and then pulled away. “Just cranky.”

 

“Is this something we should talk about later?” Stan asked, obviously taking pains to keep his voice neutral.

 

Bill pressed his lips into a tight line, and then nodded curtly. “Later.”

 

“You wanna take a picture with me, Mike, and Flynn when we get to PFH?” Stan continued carefully. It was clear that he had noticed Bill’s behavior when they were making plans earlier.

 

Bill focused his eyes on Stan’s and took a deep breath. There were wrinkles of concern (or maybe amusement?) around his eyes, and Bill tried to let himself be comforted by Stan’s obvious emotional response, but it wasn’t taking. Sighing, he slid his hands over and across Stan’s shoulders, wondering why he couldn’t get his brain to settle down.

 

“Yeah,” he finally replied, looking back at Stan’s face. “We can do that.”

 

“Let Mike work this out,” Stan told him, eyebrows drawn and serious, “okay? He’s never dated white people before. It’s like...an identity crisis for him.”

 

“Has he been talking to you about this?” Bill asked, caught off guard.

 

“Let’s go, boys!” The remaining five members of their group were pushing their way out of Casey’s and collectively ignoring the fact that Richie’s hot chocolate was sloshing everywhere, including back on to Richie’s green Goofy Christmas sweater. Eddie was leading the pack, looking more confident than Bill had ever seen him. “Rapunzel awaits!”

 

Stan took one more long, lingering look at Bill, then turned to go join the group, pulling Bill along with him by the hand. Bill let himself be taken, and put a pin in his questions and feelings for later as they crossed through the castle and into Fantasyland.

 

Mike slowed his walk and joined Bill and Stan as Pinocchio’s Village Haus came into sight. “Doing okay, babes?”

 

“We’re good,” Bill responded mechanically, absently letting go of Stan and moving towards Mike so that he could brush cookie crumbs off of his chin. “Flynn Rider?”

 

“Yeah, Eddie’s really gung-ho about it,” Mike nodded, seemingly not noticing Bill’s robotic response. “I think he’s really proud to show us all where he works and who he works with.”

 

“He knows I see him there all the time, right?” Bill asked, looking questioningly from Stan to Mike.

 

Stan shot him a slightly exasperated glance. “Mike really means that he’s proud to show _Richie_ where he works, I think.”

 

“And the rest of us,” Mike defended. “It’s the first time we’ve done something like this before, all seven. It’s kind of a big deal.”

 

“Are you guys coming or what?” Eddie called from the beginning of the Princess Fairytale line, bouncing eagerly on the tips of his toes. Beside him, Bev was mirroring his movements, and Ben and Richie were watching both of them with mild trepidation.

 

“Yes,” Stan said firmly, and the three of them walked single file down and through the doorway of Princess Fairytale Hall. Eddie led with aplomb, and when they reached the character attendant at the head of the line, they were let through without question or issue. They didn’t even have to tell her how many people were in their party. Bill was impressed in spite of himself at how much pull Eddie seemed to have with the entertainment (and entertainment adjacent) cast.

 

“Rapunzel’s one of my favorites,” Bev admitted, shooting Ben a toothy smile. “I’ve never met Flynn Ryder before.”

 

“I knew some people who were in charge of putting up the Rapunzel section of New Fantasyland a couple of years ago,” Ben said, smiling back. “They were so mad that their area didn’t have rides or meet and greets or anything. Felt like it was a waste to just make it a bathroom.”

 

“Best bathrooms in the park, though,” Richie jumped in, “I should know, I’ve tested every single one--”

 

The female character attendant leaned her head back in. “Rapunzel and Flynn are ready for you now!”

 

“Are they though,” Stan mused out loud, “are they really?”

 

“Thanks, Lauren,” Eddie said, touching her arm gratefully. She gave him a sweet, genuine smile, and then disappeared behind the door again. “She’s such a sweetheart, you guys.”

 

“Are you, like, your whole area's GBF, or what?” Bill couldn’t help but ask.

 

“GBF?” Eddie turned towards him, confused.

 

“Gay best friend,” Bill explained, smiling a little bit at the thought that Eddie Kaspbrak, of all people, had not encountered that acronym before. Behind Eddie, Richie was making a face like Bill had grown an extra head, and Bev was eyeing him with concern as well.

 

Had he made a mistake…?

 

Eddie stiffened, and turned back towards the door. “I’m nobody’s GBF, or whatever. You should know better, Denbrough. Let’s go.”

 

“You’re such an idiot sometimes,” Stan muttered as they shuffled forward, and Bill felt his face grow hot. What had he done? There was really no predicting what Eddie would take offense to, so why was Stan asking him to?

 

Was he just paranoid...?

 

Rapunzel and Flynn were waiting for them with open arms when they walked into the elaborately decorated room. Rapunzel swept her eyes over all of them, beaming, but Flynn had locked on a target: Eddie Kaspbrak’s little freckled nose.

 

Bill shifted so that he was standing closer to Richie. Catastrophe was in the air on all fronts, and Bill didn’t want to take any chances.

 

“Well hello there, sweetheart,” Flynn grinned, eyes never leaving Eddie’s as he shifted into his trademark smolder. “I think I’ve seen you before, yeah? Wouldn’t forget a face like yours - I bet they even get your nose right on the posters--”

 

“Hey, dude,” Bill found himself saying, trying to cut things short before Richie could get a word in edgewise, “how’s it going? Hit by any frying pans recently?”

 

Flynn looked up at Bill, unimpressed. “We’ve moved past that point in our relationship, haven’t we dear?”

 

“Oh, I don’t know,” and Bill was almost surprised when it was Rapunzel that responded to ‘dear’ instead of Eddie, “I do love using my frying pan, and you’re no saint.” She was looking flintily at Flynn, too - apparently she was also cognizant of whatever situation was brewing.

 

“I bet he’s terrible, isn’t he?” Richie was done keeping his mouth shut. Bill shoved his hands in his pockets, looked down, and hoped for the best. “Not so much of a fan of the frying pan method myself - luckily, Eddie here is always a saint.” He grabbed Eddie’s hand to punctuate his point. “How do we feel about taking frying pans to people that flirt with other people’s boyfriends, though, because--”

 

“Let’s just get a picture,” Stan interrupted, moving to stand between Rapunzel and Flynn. “Please.”

 

The rest of the group acquiesced almost immediately, desperate to keep Richie from cutting in again. The picture was probably going to come out horribly. There was no way that anyone was smiling genuinely.

 

“You never said you had a boyfriend, Eddie,” Bill heard Flynn whisper lowly as the camera flash went off.

 

“I definitely did say that,” Eddie hissed back, and then it was over, and they were being waved out.

 

“Who the fuck was that guy?” Bev asked as soon as everyone was back out and under the warm, hazy lights of Fantasyland.

 

“His name is Jeremy,” Eddie said, bitter, “and he’s a real tool, but did you really have to go there, Richie? Really? I was handling it.”

 

Richie opened his arms and tilted his hands so that his palms were angled towards the sky. “Can you blame me? Did you see the way he was looking at you? Total fucking pervlord. How many of the princes are like that?”

 

“Enough,” Eddie admitted, “but you can’t fucking _do_ that every time someone---I mean, you _know_ that. You _know_ how I feel about--” and he fell silent for a moment, obviously struggling to find the words that he wanted, “about--”

 

“Yeah.” Richie’s voice had dropped an octave, and for the first time in three years, Bill saw genuine embarrassment in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Eds.”

 

Eddie’s expression softened, too. “Let’s just go to Harbor House, okay? Snickerdoodles, and then Jungle?”

 

“I love snickerdoodles!” Mike, ever positive, was visibly desperate to get the outing back on the rails. He edged backwards, clearly ready to walk over to Liberty Square. Bill wanted to touch him; wanted to run his hand over his back assuringly, but felt like he couldn’t, for whatever bizarre reason. Mike was totally out of reach tonight. “I think that’s a great plan.”

 

“Liberty ho,” Ben called, walking over to the sword in the stone and making a show of trying to pull it out to underscore his command. Bev laughed and immediately went to join him, and soon all seven of them were around and on top of each other, lost in the complete chaos of having seven people trying to extract a single sword from a stone they knew wasn’t going to yield. It was the perfect tension diffuser, and even as he cursed Bev out for slipping and using his hair to catch herself, Bill was grateful. Ben always knew how to get things spinning again.

 

After a few minutes of their seven person excavation attempt, they piled off of the stone, laughing and stumbling towards Liberty Square (much to the relief of every single Fantasyland cast member).

 

“We should have taken a picture,” bemoaned Bev, fixing her hair in her phone camera.

 

“Yeah, that would have been good for Instagram,” Richie joked, “caption it: ‘writhing mass of limbs fails to pull plastic sword from plastic rock’.”

 

“We’re a cryptid,” Stan realized, expression comedically alight, and with that, Bill couldn’t help but spend the rest of the walk to Liberty Square insisting that they ride Mansion given their new cryptid status. He was shot down, 5-2. (Mike, for the first time all night, was on his side, but to no avail.) Harbor House was a momentary pitstop that was more ‘how many cookies can Richie stuff down his pants without getting kicked out of the restaurant’ than legitimate break, and then it was on through the Adventureland Veranda towards the Jungle.

 

Every single CP that was working (which was like...6 CPs, they really understaffed the park for parties) at Jungle recoiled when they saw Richie coming.

 

“What did we do to deserve this?” asked the gangly, gawky kid at Greeter as they approached, peering nervously up at Richie from under the brim of his safari hat. “Thought you were off today, Rich.”

 

“I can’t believe you’re infamous,” Stan complained, shaking his head vigorously at his roommate.

 

“I’m not good with kids, Stanny. Sorry,” Richie said, approaching Gangly Limbs. “Anyway, what’s it to you, Noodle? It’s not like I’m working a shift.”

 

“Yeah, but--” the kid started, stepping forward to try and get Richie to back off, but when Richie didn’t move, the poor kid immediately caved. “Okay. Whatever. Rosa will probably let you commandeer her bote if you ask.”

 

Richie winced. “Rosa’s spieling? Dude.”

 

“I know.” The kid shook his head, sighing. “Neil Patrick Harris came through two parties ago and rode Rosa’s bote. It was embarrassing all around.”

 

“How do I always miss celebrities?” Richie whined at the same time that Stan yelped, “You guys see guests like Neil Patrick Harris?!?”

 

Bill stepped in with an answer for Stan. “Yeah, MK’s pretty lucky that way. One of my coworkers was assigned to Chris Pratt a week or so ago, and another is going to be the VIP Guide for Chris Evans’ annual trip in like, three days.”

 

Stan rolled his eyes and tugged agitatedly at a curl. “Park privilege. Ugh.”

 

“Anyway,” the kid tried again, clearly anxious to have them gone, “go up the Fastpass line, Richie. No one will complain.”

 

Richie fixed him with a flat look. “I’ve been here for three years, kid. I know what I’m doing.”

 

“Let’s just go, okay?” Eddie tugged on Richie's sleeve anxiously. Gawky Kid shot him a grateful smile.

 

“See you later, Noodle,” Richie waved, still obviously unimpressed. The kid was going to be on the receiving end of Richie roasts and pranks for weeks, Bill was sure.

 

When their bote came around the corner, Richie informed them unenthusiastically that their tour guide was indeed going to be Rosa, and proceeded to complain about how unfunny she was until Mike unceremoniously cut him off.

 

“Rich. Why don’t you just jack the mic?”

 

Richie shifted awkwardly and looked down into the greenish brown water. “Not my place, probably.”

 

“Why are you embarrassed of this?” Stan, as always, cut right to the chase. “I’ve ridden your bote. Bill’s been on your bote. I think Bev’s been on your bote. Is it Mike? Ben?”

 

They all knew what Stan was getting at, and most of them had the decency to look away while Richie processed what was actually going on up in his brain. Bill, however, had never been a decent man (not by his own reckoning, anyway), and so he kept his eyes glued to Richie, watching with interest as Richie fastidiously avoided looking at Eddie.

 

“You don’t have to be embarrassed in front of me, Richie,” Eddie said quietly. “I’m not gonna stop liking you. You know that, right?”

 

“Getting there,” Richie muttered. “You guys really want a Richie Tozier show?”

 

“Yes!” The response was instantaneous. All six of them snapped back around, staring at Richie expectantly.

 

“Well all right then.” Richie smiled softly. It was a small smile, but there was no doubt in Bill’s mind that it was genuine. “Let's go, then. I'm not gonna give you my usual safetly spiel, but like...don’t slip when you get into the boat. The Richie Tozier express dumps dead weight, so if you fall and hit your head, you’re toast. Gator food.”

 

“If you truly dumped dead weight, you’d have tossed yourself over a long time ago,” Bev quipped, and the group was immediately back to that safe, happy sword-in-the-stone place. Good. Bill wasn’t sure how many more ups and downs he could stomach over the course of the night.

 

Rosa surrendered her vehicle immediately once she saw Richie on the dock (he seemed to be a source of great terror for the current crop of CPs), and Richie took up the Skipper mantle neatly and immediately, jumping on board and switching out his tye-dye Santa hat for Rosa’s Jungle Skipper Santa hat. He grabbed the mic with aplomb and started waving it around obnoxiously. “This thing on? Just kidding, it doesn’t have to be, I’m loud as fuck. Sorry, frick,” he apologized, eyeing the coordinator on the side of the dock. “Sit down and be amazed, Benjamin. You're about to risk your life by being in a vehicle with me to see a bunch of shadowy show scenes because the lighting on this attraction is trash. It's Christmas themed, though, so it's at least like...jolly. Fun! Any last words?"

 

Bill had, of course, been on Richie’s bote probably hundreds of times, so the spiel wasn’t entirely new to him (even if it was Jingle rather than Jungle). That being the case, he chose to spend the bote ride watching his friends.

 

Ben was absolutely enraptured by Richie. It had obviously been a while since he’d ridden the Jungle Cruise, and to Richie’s delight, that meant that Ben laughed at even the more stale, scripted jokes. Beside him, Bev was giggling less at Richie’s jokes and more at Ben’s earnestness. The two of them were adorable, even if Ben was still looking a little pale and shaky.

 

Stan was...unreadable, again. He kept his eyes trained on Richie the whole ride, but in such a way that Bill could genuinely not tell whether he was annoyed by Richie’s tirade or proud of him for it. Bill wondered whether both of those options weren’t true. In contrast, Mike wasn’t looking at Richie at all. He was staring off of the side of the bote contemplatively, as if weighing two incredibly difficult decisions. The sight of him made Bill feel inexplicably wary, as if something bad was coming down the pipeline. 

  
Okay, that was definitely just paranoia.

 

Finally, Eddie….God, the Eddie that had shown up for this party was not an Eddie that Bill had ever seen before. Eddie's nervous exterior was still very much intact, but there was a really clear and distinct excitement and longing behind his jittery outer shell when he looked at Richie, and it made Bill wonder whether Eddie had ever really felt heckled by Richie in Adventureland at all. There were absolutely no signs of exasperation in Eddie’s face or body, which was absolutely astonishing. He was completely devoted to hearing, seeing, _experiencing_ Richie.

 

When the ride ended, Bill was more than a little jealous. What was working with Richie and Eddie that wasn’t working with he, Stan, and Mike? What was working with Ben and Bev?

 

“And as we end our two week trip through however many rivers I just said we trekked through, I just wanted to say,” Richie was finishing, leaning carelessly back against the front of the bote and not breaking eye contact with Eddie, “that you’ve been the cutest group I’ve ever brought through here, and when I say that, I am of course only referring to Eddie. Anyways...I was thinking, nay, planning ahead earlier in the week, and so tell me, folks: if I say, made hotel reservations in Anaheim in July, whaddya say we make a trip, just the seven of us Losers?”

 

There was a quick, astonished silence as they all processed Richie’s words, and then:

 

“FUCK yeah!”

 

“I’ve never been to Disneyland!”

 

“I’ll see if I can get time off, that would be awesome--”

 

“You’re a genius, Rich!”

 

Eddie, for his part, did not respond. Instead, he calmly stood up (despite Richie’s earlier warnings against moving in the bote), pushed his way to the front, and attached his lips firmly to Richie’s.

 

Bill watched them for thirty whole seconds before it occurred to him to look away or do anything else. Fortunately, he was covered by the fact that Ben was clapping loudly and Bev was wolf-whistling. He joined in with the clapping, feeling strangely embarrassed...not that he had any reason to be. Well, no, he kind of had a reason to be. Now that Richie and Eddie had finally taken that particular plunge (Bill was like, 95% sure that they were witnessing their first official kiss), they didn’t seem to be stopping. People had to yell from the docks to get Richie to pull away and drive the bote back up to unload.

 

He looked back over at Stan, and found that Stan was looking at Mike with a sweet, tender expression. They were having a moment...and Bill wasn’t a part of it.

 

When it was time to disembark, Bill jockeyed to be the first one out of the bote, pushing hastily to get himself on to shore. He’d had enough of being jostled by waves he wasn’t prepared for.

 

If they were going to make it to July, some serious conversation was going to have to happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes @ both Bill and myself
> 
> I know y'all are gonna have opinions on this so come roast me in the comments or at skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com
> 
> p.s. I'm SURE you can't actually get away with switching out Skippers like that given that Richie is literally there as a guest and in civvies, but whatever...it's a plot device
> 
> p.p.s. Stan's cryptid line is a direct reference to cryptidstanley.tumblr.com


	9. "I Will Go Sailing No More" (Mike)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why not ‘I’m happy for you’, Bill? Why not just ‘okay’? Mike’s wanted to transfer for a really long time! You could at least pretend to be happy!”
> 
> “But I’m not happy,” Bill said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “and I don’t want to lie.”

**MIKE HANLON**

**TRANSFERRING TO SOMEWHERE IN ATTRACTIONS**

**Currently: AT THE HOOP-DE-DOO REVIEW WITH HIS BOYFRIENDS**

**FEBRUARY 14th**

**6:00 p.m.**

 

“Round em up pardners,” the frontier themed (cowboy) cast member called out from the front podium of Pioneer Hall at the Fort Wilderness Resort. “Showtime in 30 minutes! Those in the front, come on down and let’s get you seated. Don’t want the fun to start without anybody!”

 

Mike sighed and shuffled forwards. Behind him, he heard Bill and Stan do the same.

 

‘Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day!” the CM called out as an afterthought, and Mike’s stomach dropped down all the way to his feet.

 

This was gonna be an  _ experience _ , and not in the fun, life-changing way.

 

“How romantic,” Stan said acridly. Mike winced as he heard him kick a rock. He wished to God he’d cancelled this reservation - and he almost had, about a week ago, after Bill had made a particularly unfortunate comment that he hadn’t realized was anti-Semetic until Stan was halfway out the door. Mike had opened the My Disney Experience app as Bill stomped around in the kitchen of Mike and Ben’s apartment, and had hovered his thumb over the ‘cancel reservation’ button, but had ultimately decided to keep it until everything had cooled off. After all, after that kind of blowout, it was usually safe to assume that things could only get better.

 

This relationship was really doing a number on Mike’s optimism.

 

“It’ll be fun,” Bill tried half-heartedly, speeding up so that he was walking next to Mike. “You haven’t been, right, Mike? It’s fun.”

 

Someone gave a whooping yell from inside Pioneer Hall, and someone else yodeled in response. Mike was pretty sure that based on those two things alone, he could deduce that the things that Bill found fun were a pretty far cry from what he himself was interested in. If Stan’s loud sigh and exaggerated shuffling was anything to go on, he was feeling the same way.

 

(Dating a white boy was a little different, it turned out, if said white boy was Jewish. There was a little more camaraderie, a little more of a shared understanding in that.

 

Christian white boys from the Illinois suburbs? Well...that was a different story.)

 

At last, they reached the podium. Mike took a deep breath, and proceeded.

 

“Hanlon, party of 3,” he told the cowboy guy.

 

“Three…” the CM ran his finger down the list of names on his iPad until he found the one he was looking for. “Righty-o. Three cowpokes? Lonely Valentine's Day for you?”

 

_ Yes _ , Mike thought, as his mouth said, “No.”

 

The CM blinked, shrugged, and gestured for them to follow another Little House on the Prairie-type female employee into Pioneer Hall. “All right, then. Have a nice night!”

 

“Do you think he thinks it’s weird?” Bill asked, looking back at Cowboy CM with concern.

 

“He’s definitely seen weirder.” Stan had moved up to walk next to Mike and Bill. His mouth was pulled into a tight line, and Mike couldn’t help but feel guilty that Stan had been dragged out when he very clearly didn’t want to be there. “Don’t worry about it. I’m wondering, though - do we have to participate in this show? Are people going to touch me?”

 

“No one’s going to touch you,” Mike promised, sliding a hand over the small of Stan’s back and rubbing his thumb in reassuring circles.

 

“Probably not,” Bill amended, and Mike shot him an exasperated glare.

 

“Dude.”

 

“Just saying,” Bill muttered.

 

They were seated about three rows back from the stage, and their drink orders were taken immediately. Mike had been planning on staying sober so that they wouldn’t have to pay for an Uber on their way back, but all of that was out the window in the face of the tension in the air. All three of them ordered sangria, and when the waiter informed them that it was bottomless, Stan audibly muttered “Good” under his breath.

 

When the waiter walked away, the only noise for five solid minutes was the hum of the tourists at the surrounding tables.

 

_ You should have known this would happen _ , a voice in the back of Mike’s head whispered.  _ Jumping into things without getting to know them at all…? _

 

“We should talk,” Mike finally blurted, if only to silence that horrible, horrible voice. “Right?”

 

“We did talk,” Bill pointed out, eyes burning little laser holes into Mike’s forehead. The waiter came back with their sangrias (Stan’s white and Bill and Mike’s red), and silently, they each brought their glasses to their mouths and drank more than what was probably acceptable for a first swallow.

 

“Mike’s right,” Stan acquiesced, pulling back from his drink and wincing at its acrid aftertaste. “It’s not enough to have had one after-Christmas tell-all, especially given that nothing’s changed.”

 

The Christmas conversation had been a veritable shitshow. Mike had been talking with his father a lot in and around the holidays, which had gotten him thinking about his relationship (where it was going, how he was handling it, etc.), so he was admittedly a little distant in working some of that out through late November and early December, but Bill had made it sound like he was completely checked out. Stan had tried his best to mediate, but Bill wasn’t very interested in mediating, and as such, they’d come out worse from that than they’d been before.

 

Fate and the cosmos apparently had an expiration date. Real life had 100% kicked in, and Mike absolutely did  _ not _ care for it.

 

Still, he was a good person, and he did still care for Bill and Stan (especially Stan, wholeheartedly Stan), so he figured he needed to keep trying for at least a little bit longer.

 

“So,” he began, twisting his napkin in his lap nervously, “I think…”

 

“HOOP DE DOO!” The band revved up, and the ensemble ran in from the back. Mike rolled his eyes and took another long drink of his sangria. Of COURSE the timing was going to work out like that.

 

Bill, for his part, had relief written all over his face. He clapped along with the tourists, smiling and sipping his drink, and Mike felt anger - God, how long had it been since he’d felt  _ anger _ \- simmering at the base of his chest. Why didn't Bill want to hear what he and Stan had to say? There was an entitlement in it that made Mike’s blood run hot.

 

Stan had obviously seen the flash of negativity that had swept over Mike’s face. He immediately slid a hand out and over, ignoring Bill’s glee entirely in favor of bringing Mike to a more agreeable emotional place. 

 

“Just think,” he said, looking Mike in the eyes, “this could be you at the Country Bears when you transfer to MK attractions.”

 

That got Bill’s attention. He snapped his gaze from the stage to his boyfriends. “Transfer?”

 

“Oh.” Mike shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, I put in to transfer to attractions. I wanted DAK but apparently they can move me faster if I agree to go to MK, so I’m pretty sure that I’m gonna agree to to to MK. I thought I told you?”

 

(He knew he hadn’t told Bill about that. He had a gut feeling that Bill wouldn’t respond well.)

 

True to form, Bill was frowning, looking every inch the exasperated tour guide as he considered Mike’s words.

 

“You sure that’s a good idea?” he asked finally, shooting a glare over to one of the entertainers when it looked like they were going to come interact with their table.

 

“I don’t follow,” Mike said, mirroring Bill’s frown.

 

“It’s just--” Bill was struggling to find the words for what he wanted to say, which made Mike extremely suspicious. “Dating someone you work with? Is that wise?”

 

A waiter slid a slab of cornbread on to their table. It fell with a loud clatter, and Mike winced. He finished his glass of sangria, and wordlessly, the waiter took the glass away.

 

“Technically, we all work together,” Stan pointed out, clutching his drink and pointedly ignoring the cornbread.

 

“Yeah, but like,’ Bill gestured vaguely with his hands. “Same park is different than park-park-hotel, you know?”

 

“Richie and Eddie make it work,” Mike said, angrier than he intended to.

 

Stan winced. “Sort of. What a mess.”

 

“I thought they were making it work, anyway,” Mike amended. They okay?”

 

“Oh--” Stan rolled his eyes and waved his hands. “They’re actually fine, but there’s always  _ some _ thing. I don’t know what Eddie’s freaking out about right now, but Richie’s current big thing is that he wants to have sex, but doesn’t know how to ask. It’s like his hiatus from sex turned him back into a virgin again or something. He wasn’t like this in undergrad.”

 

“Maybe he just really cares,” Mike suggested, feeling heavy at the thought of his friend still being nervous about communicating with Eddie after all this time. It had been months, now, and the two of them were still kind of behaving like middle-schoolers.

 

“Maybe he should be on medication,” Bill countered. “How long has he been this jittery-anxious? And Stan, didn’t you say he was depressed? Has he been auditioning or anything?”

 

“I said I was worried,” Stan shot back. “Where the hell are you getting the rest of that? You barely even know him.”

 

“I’ve known him for three years,” Bill said incredulously, staring at Stan like Stan had just admitted to murder. “Just because you’ve known him the longest--”

 

“You two didn’t spend time together until this past November,” Stan said, acid in his voice. “You have no right to insinuate that stuff about him.”

 

Bill rolled his eyes and downed the rest of his sangria. “You guys are offended by  _ everything. _ You remind me of this creative writing professor I had in college--”

 

The waitress came back with drink refills before Bill could finish his story, and Mike could have kissed him for it. He  _ really _ hadn’t wanted to hear about the rest of Bill’s college experience. 

 

“Not offended,” Mike said, summoning what little patience he had left. “Just concerned, is all, and wishing you would maybe think before you speak sometimes. Your experiences aren’t all universal.”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bill said shortly, turning his body so that he was facing the stage. Mike met Stan’s eyes and could tell that they were on the same exasperated page. Of  _ course _ Bill didn’t want to hear what they had to say.

 

“I think you don’t want Mike to transfer to MK because it makes you feel special to be the only one that knows how things work there,” Stan called, loud enough to get Bill’s attention (as well as the attention of the two families of guests on either side of them). “I know it’s not because you don’t want to share space for the sake of the relationship. You would never run into each other in the Magic Kingdom. Trillions of people work there. No.” Stan paused, and Bill’s face twitched like he was thinking about turning away again. To his credit, he didn’t. “We’ve seen how much you love giving tours and being in charge. MK is your turf. Why don’t you just say so instead of making things up?”

 

There was a tense silence in which Mike and Stan stared at Bill, and Bill stared at the floor. In the background, one of the performers was doing a solo number, but Mike was beyond caring about what was happening on stage, except that they were totally wasting money by not watching. Bill’s eyes kept edging up, like he was thinking the same thing about how much dinner and a show had cost, but he resisted for a good two minutes. Finally, he seemed to make a decision, and rolled his shoulders back, looking first at Stan and then slowly over to Mike.

 

“Okay, fine,” Bill said quietly. “I like having MK to myself. It’s selfish. That’s why I didn’t say it.”

 

The soloist on stage finished, and a parade of waiters waltzed through the audience area, dropping off chicken, biscuits, corn, and beans as they passed by. Mike noted without interest that they hadn’t even eaten their cornbread yet. He  _ really _ should have cancelled this reservation.

 

“I’m still gonna work at MK,” Mike told Bill, “whether you want me to or not.”

 

(Truthfully, Mike had been on the fence about moving to MK immediately versus waiting a little bit for a DAK position to open up, but Bill had pissed him off badly enough that his mind was now made up. Mike figured it was a good thing that he didn’t get mad that often, because he was learning quickly that the probability of his making snap decisions increased by at least 3000% when he was upset.)

 

Bill stared back at him, eyes empty. “Well, I can’t stop you, can I?”

 

That was the wrong thing to say. Stan’s expression was twisting sour again, and before Mike could reach out to keep him from speaking, he was addressing Bill pointedly. “Why not ‘I’m happy for you’, Bill? Why not just ‘okay’? Mike’s wanted to transfer for a really long time! You could at least pretend to be happy!”

 

“But I’m not happy,” Bill said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “and I don’t want to lie.”

 

Mike thought about his parents and the lie he could have lived, and felt his stomach burn as his next words came out of his mouth. “Sometimes it’s better to be kind than it is to be honest.”

 

“Everything okay over here?” Their waiter came back through, and Mike watched, detached, as Bill downed his sangria again so that he could get yet another refill. “Food all right?”

 

“It’s great,” Stan lied, jerking forward and beginning to spoon beans on to his plate. “I think some drink refills are in order, though.” He put down the spoon and drank heavily from his sangria for emphasis.

 

“If you’re sure,” the waiter said warily.

 

“We’re sure,” Stan said, firm and direct. After the waiter was gone, he turned back to Bill. “See? A little lie. Didn’t hurt him, no one was put on the spot, we’re getting more sangria. Easy.”

 

Bill huffed and adjusted his shoulders again. “It’s not that easy for me. I’m surprised - we’ve been together for what, four months? Five? And I thought--”

 

“You didn’t think wrong, Bill,” Mike assured him. “We know you don’t like to lie or break promises. We know that you’re an action guy and like to jump into things. We know you like to be in control...and we like those things. We do. It’s just...it’s tough, you know? Because sometimes all of your - I don’t know, Red Ranger personality things make it kind of hard to talk to you.”

 

For the first time all night, the corners of Bill’s mouth twitched up. “Red Ranger?”

 

“Sure.” Mike smiled back, trying to keep with the positivity. “I’m Blue Ranger, Stan’s Green Ranger.”

 

“Eddie’s the Pink Ranger,” Stan mumbled to himself, giggling into his sangria.

 

“The point is,” Mike continued, “we kind of feel like you’re not hearing us when we talk to you. That’s all.”

 

The show was resuming, and Bill’s eyes flickered up to the stage again. Mike felt his own smile slip away. Hadn’t they just talked about Bill not listening? He could practically feel Bill’s attention drifting off.

 

“Bill,” Mike said again, trying very hard to be gentle. “What do you think?”

 

Bill’s eyes flickered hesitantly back towards Mike. “I...don’t know.”

 

And there it was.

 

“You don’t know?” Stan asked, punctuating the question with a piercing stare. Mike didn’t blame Bill for flinching away from that particular Stan look.

 

“I’ve had a lot to drink,” Bill admitted. “I feel okay right now, but I have a feeling when I go to use the bathroom…”

 

“That’s when you know,” Mike agreed.

 

“Okay.” Stan nodded, brow furrowed in thought. “Okay, we’ll sleep on it, but Bill - I know you’re set in your ways, but if you really don’t think you can compromise…”

 

“Don’t,” Bill said softly. Mike averted his eyes out of habit. He never knew what to do when people got emotional in front of him. He loved his parents very much, but he hadn’t had very much practice in feelings response with his ex-military father and strong, solemn mother. “I don’t want to think about that yet.”

 

Mike looked hard at Stan, who was examining Bill’s face. From the intensity in his eyes, Mike knew that Stan’s mind was made up, and not the way that Bill was leaning. It was going to be up to Mike to make the final decision.

 

He didn’t want that kind of responsibility, especially tonight. He’d had a lot to drink, too.

 

“You have to know it’s a possibility,” Stan urged. “We can’t just keep ignoring things, Bill. That’s how we ended up here.”

 

“You’re one to talk about ignoring things,” Bill shot back, obviously sensing what Stan was getting at. “I could say the same stuff about you as I did earlier about Richie. If we weren’t around, would you even take--”

 

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Stan said, voice like the edge of a knife. Mike leaned back in his chair, wanting to put physical space between himself and whatever was about to go down. He’d never heard Stan use that tone before. “Do you hear yourself when you talk? Do you  _ hear yourself _ ?”

 

“I’m just trying to be fair,” Bill said, splaying out his arms. “I don’t know why you guys are attacking me specifically, but it’s messed up, and I’m not--”

 

“It’s called constructive criticism,” Stan snarled, “ever heard of it? Has anyone ever criticized you before, Bill? Or did you just storm out on everyone that has, like whatever professor you mentioned earlier? That’s not how life works. You can’t just  _ leave-- _ ”

 

“Actually, I think I can,” Bill said abruptly, pushing his chair back and standing up. He wobbled for a moment (the sangria was obviously taking effect) and then righted himself, glaring down at Mike and Stan. The kids in the family behind him yelled at him to get out of the way of their view, and he took several steps off to the side. “I’m gonna call Bev and see if she can pick me up. Goodbye.”

 

Mike watched him walk away, feeling like he should call out but not knowing how. Stan’s eyes were fixed on the stage for the first time all evening.

 

“This show is garbage,” he said after several long, heavy seconds. “Do you want to go buy a beef brisket sandwich at the Chuck Wagon Food Truck?

 

Mike looked despondently down at the chicken in front of him.

 

“Is that what you want, sweetheart?” he asked carefully.

 

Stan took a deep breath and held out his hand to Mike, palm up. Mike looked at it for a moment, a quiet smile threatening to cross his face. 

 

“I want what you want,” Stan said, expression sad, but firm.

 

Mike took his hand, and felt a weight lift off of his chest.

 

“Let’s go eat a sandwich,” Mike said, turning around to see if their waiter was nearby. “Check, please!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> deep and soulful sigh
> 
> come and tell me that this is supposed to be a Reddie fic and ask me where tf I get off on writing a solo Stenbroughlon chapter in the comments or at skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com


	10. "Let It Go" (Bev)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I like the Japan store,” Eddie volunteered.
> 
> “Is there a single piece of Hello Kitty merchandise in there you don’t already own?” Bev joked, winking teasingly at him, but to her surprise, he looked more embarrassed than amused.
> 
> “Oh, God.” Mike had seen Eddie’s face contort, too. “How much Hello Kitty stuff DO you have?”
> 
> “Never mind, skip Japan,” Eddie squeaked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "La Vie En Rose" plays a lot at the France pavilion and I had it playing throughout my construction of this chapter, so if you want mood music...
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFzViYkZAz4&feature=youtu.be

**BEVERLY MARSH**

**COSTUMES, MAGIC KINGDOM**

**but more immediately**

**THE FRANCE PAVILION IN EPCOT’S WORLD SHOWCASE**

**MARCH 17th**

**1:45 p.m.**

 

“Is there a reason you wanted to come over here instead of being with the Saint Patrick’s Day crowd at the UK Pavilion?”

 

Beverly tore her eyes from the green and yellow sweep of topiary Belle’s dress. Epcot was right smack in the middle of its annual Garden Festival, which meant that festive flowers and pretty sculpted plant statues were everywhere. Comparatively speaking, she felt like a black hole. This was definitely not the first place she would have chosen to be on this day.

 

“Too loud,” she lied, looking back at Ben, whose eyes were narrow with concern. He’d spent the whole day trying to suss out what was making her sad, which was sweet, but in this particular moment, she’d rather he weren’t so observant. It was a decent trade off, though - she was pretty sure that on most days, it was him that wished she weren’t watching him so closely. It was those powers of observation that had led them to keeping each other at arm’s length over the past few months. Her own experiences had led her to the personal understanding that it wasn’t healthy to be in a relationship if you were in a messy mental place, and Ben’s issues with food were enough to qualify as messy. He was working on it, though, and she was helping.

 

Today, it was going to be his turn to help...and she was going to have to let him.

 

For his part, he was trying to rein himself back from asking too many questions - she could see it in the concerned crinkles around his eyes. She appreciated his restraint, and as a reward, granted him the answer to one of the questions she knew was rattling around his brain.

 

“Too drunk,” she told him, adding on to her previous answer, and he seemed more settled with that. “Reminds me too much of home.”

 

“Home, huh?” he tried, attempting to both ask a question and not ask a question at the same time.

 

She hadn’t spent this day with anyone before, and she knew that this was the reason why - this pushing, this lack of understanding - but at the same time, it was really fucking nice to have someone that cared. Actually, maybe that was it. Maybe she hadn’t spent this day with anyone because she didn’t think anyone cared enough.

 

Her feelings around the anniversary of her father’s death were too complicated for her to fully parse out, at the end of the day.

 

“Let’s take a walk,” she suggested, getting up from the smooth wooden bench they were sitting on and extending her hand out to Ben. She hadn’t decided yet how much she was going to share with him, but she always did better with processing and developing her feelings when she was in motion, so she figured that was enough of a start.

 

Ben took her hand hesitantly and allowed her to help pull him to his feet. “What about Eddie and Mike? They said they’d meet us in France.”

 

Bev shrugged. “We’ll be back. And if not, we’ll text them.”

 

“Okay.” They began making their way towards Morocco slowly, letting themselves fall into the sleepy walking pattern of the tourists around them. Ben nudged her pinky with his, and she smiled and interlaced them, looking down at her shoes as she did so. 

 

“I’m worried about Bill,” she said, introducing a new line of conversation as a placeholder until she figured out what to say about her father. “He’s been running basically on autopilot and drinking a lot. Is Mike really torn up, too?”

 

“About the breakup?” Ben frowned, looking at where their pinkies were curled together and biting his lip. “I mean, he’s been hitting the gym more, but...I don’t know. He’s been talking to someone a lot on the phone, and I don’t mean to be eavesdropping or snooping or anything, but...I think it might be Stan.”

 

They’d reached Morocco at that point, and Bev felt herself drawn in by the fountains and architecture. She tugged at Ben’s hand, taking him with her into the maze of touristy marketplaces. He offered up no resistance.

 

“You think Stan and Mike got back together?” she asked once they were tucked away neatly in an empty, peaceful courtyard that was meant to be a recreation of some grand open-air temple. She didn’t like the idea that Stan and Mike might have cut Bill out. She’d known Bill the longest of all of them (well...Richie had technically known him the longest, but Bill’s relationship with Richie was too different from Bill’s relationship with Bev to really be able to compare), and while she knew that some of the concerns that Mike and especially Stan had voiced about him were legitimate, she also knew that he was a good man. He just didn’t always have the resources to pull his head out of his ass long enough to show it.

 

“I’m not sure they ever split up,” Ben said carefully, as if he had read her mind to know how she was feeling about the whole thing.

 

“Do you think it’s fair?” she asked Ben, genuinely curious to know what he had to say.

 

Ben took a deep breath, and looked up at the sky through the open-air ceiling of the mock-temple. “I don’t know. I trust Mike to make the decisions that are right for him.”

 

Bev knew that the surrounding architecture was enticing - hell, she was the one that had dragged them into Morocco in the first place - but she couldn’t seem to look anywhere but at Ben’s face in that moment. There was so much strength in his jaw, his eyes, and the slope of his shoulders...and yet something about him was still incredibly, undeniably soft. When the sun hit him just right through the roof and reflected off of the tiles, the effect was kind of amazing.

 

_ Is this love? How would I know if it was? _

 

The love she could and should have experienced in her childhood was suddenly at the forefront of her mind, and with a jolt, she remembered again what day it was. That horrible thought made it so that the sun, in her mind, was suddenly and irreversibly covered by clouds. Ben’s face was no longer illuminated in a way that made him look beautiful and unearthly. Now it was just a face.

 

“Oh, there you are!” Before she could figure out how to push those thoughts out of her mouth and in Ben’s general direction, they were discovered by their friends. Eddie had proven to have a knack for navigation and picking each of them out in a crowd. In Disney, that was usually a handy skill...except when you were trying to divulge secrets and he honed in on you anyway.

 

“Hey, Eddie.” Sighing, Bev turned towards the source of the noise. Eddie was looking sweet as always in a plain yellow t-shirt and jeans, but his clasped, fidgety hands betrayed his near-constant state of emotional turmoil. He offered up a weak smile to the two of them, and Ben moved to hug him in response.   
  


“Doing all right, Bev?” Mike was there, too. Ben hugged him immediately after he finished with Eddie, but Bev didn’t move. She wasn’t sure if she’d forgiven him yet.

 

“Not bad,” she said icily, averting her eyes from his white t-shirt and focusing instead on the floor mosaic. “Yourself?”

 

“Been better,” he said bluntly, and she felt her eyes snap back to him instinctively to try and suss out how serious he was. The first thing she saw were the deep, defined bags under his eyes, and she immediately felt guilty. How much of his unfairness had she postulated or assumed, and how much of it was actually true?

 

“I bet,” she found herself saying, feeling tension leave her shoulders and arms. She couldn’t stay mad at him - at any of them. She still wanted to believe so badly in that cosmic feeling she’d felt the first time they’d all come together. It wouldn’t do to let petty relationship grievances come in the way of that, especially given that it wasn’t even  _ her  _ relationship. “I can’t imagine.”

 

“It’s very complicated,” he said, meeting her eyes evenly, “but I think it was the right decision.”

 

“Are you comfortable sharing more?” she pressed. She was incredibly curious about the specifics of the breakup, but more than that, she was worried that Ben might start giving her suspicious looks again if the conversation started to float away from what was happening with their friends.

 

Mike shifted from foot to foot, eyes glued to his feet. Next to him, Eddie looked alarmed that he wasn’t the only one shuffling around nervously. “We just needed communication to be better than it was. That’s all.”

 

Okay. That made more sense in Bev’s brain than the straight shut-out she’d imagined Mike and Stan pulling. She had first hand experience in communicating with Bill, and could attest to the fact that Bill wasn’t a great listener.

 

“Makes sense,” she told him. “Bill’s definitely not awesome at taking external feelings and feedback into consideration. Was it amiable, though? Were you nice?”

 

Mike shifted his eyes from the ground to the sky. “It’ll take us a while to be cool with each other again, I think. We kinda got into it with each other on Valentine’s, and then again when we tried to bring it up with Bill the next day, and then for like two weeks after that. Excuse my language, but it’s been a fucking process.”

 

“I’m really sorry,” Ben said, earnest as ever.

 

“Not your fault,” said Mike kindly. “We’re trying to patch things up between the three of us in time for us to all have a nice, friendly trip to Disneyland when July rolls around. I’m really looking forward to that.”

 

“Fuck.” Bev shook her head, annoyed. “I forgot about that. You idiots better pull it together, or I’ll murder you before we even lift off from Orlando International, I swear.”

 

Suddenly, Mike’s face tensed. “Oh, shit, wait. Does Richie remember, Eddie? Does he know we’re going away? I know he’s gone on one or two auditions for things in the last two weeks, and is trying to do more of that according to Stan, but if that’s like, a show week...fuck, I don’t know how theatre works. You know what I mean.”

 

Eddie, who had really obviously been zoning out through a good chunk of their earlier conversation, was once again engaged - and not only engaged, but staring up at each of them as if willing them to catch on fire. “Auditions?”

 

Mike stared back down at him, brow cinched towards the center of his forehead. “You didn’t know?”

 

“No,” Eddie said, eyes blank. “No, he...he didn’t tell me.”

 

“I bet he’s just trying not to get his hopes up,” Ben cut in quickly, sensing a potentially sticky situation and working to remedy it immediately (and if that wasn’t Imagineer training at work, what was?). “I know when I put in proposals for projects, I don’t tell anyone until they get approved because I don’t want to have to backtrack with people if they don’t, you know?”

 

Eddie shook his head. He’d started tapping his foot on the floor mosaic when conversation about Richie had started, and now his rhythm had escalated to a point where passersby were at risk of misidentifying him as Thumper Rabbit. “I mean, I guess, but...I don’t know?”

 

“What don’t you know?” asked Bev, a little nervous that he might break something in his show of anxiety.

 

“I mean, it’s kind of a big deal, right?” Eddie asked, eyes darting from friend to friend searchingly. “Not working here anymore? Kind of a big deal, even if you don’t know for sure yet?” He finally fixed his eyes on the ground and ran a hand through his hair, destroying the carefully curated look he’d obviously worked to put together that morning. “I don’t have a lot of like, experience with this stuff, but I know that’s probably a thing that other, um, couples would talk about?” His ears went red upon saying the word ‘couples’, and Bev was reminded overtly of how much younger Eddie was than the rest of them. He still had so much stuff to go through. She was almost jealous...but then, she really wasn’t. She wouldn’t go through the shit she’d had to go through in her early 20’s again if you paid her.

 

“Ask him about it when you get home,” Mike advised. “Just for like, honesty’s sake, you know? Because you wouldn’t have a problem with it if he got a part in something, right?”

 

Eddie sucked in a harsh breath, and Bev was surprised to see a conflicted expression flash over his face. “I don’t...no.”

 

“So ask,” Mike said again, as if things were really that simple and he hadn’t recently had relationship issues over similar communication issues. “Okay?”

 

“Okay,” Eddie mumbled, and Bev knew from his tone that this issue was not finished; in fact, far from it.

 

“Richie cares so much about you, Eddie,” Ben said softly, obviously having sensed the same lack of closure that Bev had just picked up on. “Whatever you have to say about what he’s doing, he’ll listen - whether that’s about careers, or sex,or whatever. I’ve only known him for a couple of months, but that’s enough for me to have picked up on the fact that he is, in essence, a good man. He’ll stop running his mouth and start making sure you’re okay as soon as you indicate that you aren’t.”

 

That seemed to calm Eddie down a little. His foot tapping slowed to a normal human pace. “You think so?”

 

“I know so,” Ben confirmed, smiling softly. Mike clapped a hand on to Ben’s shoulder, and together, they fixed Eddie with their most reassuring faces. The effect of that was like magic: Eddie immediately rolled his shoulders back and allowed a small smile to make its way into the corners of his mouth. 

 

“So what do you nerds want to do on this fine day off?” Bev asked, gesturing around her at the rest of the world showcase.

 

“I like the Japan store,” Eddie volunteered.

 

“Is there a single piece of Hello Kitty merchandise in there you don’t already own?” Bev joked, winking teasingly at him, but to her surprise, he looked more embarrassed than amused.

 

“Oh, God.” Mike had seen Eddie’s face contort, too. “How much Hello Kitty stuff DO you have?”

 

“Never mind, skip Japan,” Eddie squeaked.

 

“I know Mexico’s far, but it’s been a hell of a few weeks - I could use a marg,” Mike offered, Disney-pointing across the water at the huge Aztec temple replica that marked the placement of the Mexico pavilion. Bev felt her stomach sour at the thought of strong, alcoholic drinks.

 

“I’m not drinking today,” she warned them, putting her hands on her stomach for emphasis.

 

“Oh?” Mike raised one eyebrow. “So no UK either, then.”

 

“No UK,” Ben confirmed, moving up and linking his pinky with Bev’s again. Bev smiled when she felt his pinky brush questioningly up against hers. Even if he didn’t know it, he always knew exactly what to do in any given moment to make her feel wanted - to make her feel safe.

 

She felt safer than she’d ever felt in her whole life with these boys supporting her, and she was struck with a burst of potent gratitude. When she opened her mouth, the next thing that she found pouring out was the truth.

 

“My father died two years ago today,” she said, fighting the urge to disconnect from the rest of them and stare out at World Showcase Lagoon.

 

Their response was swift and immediate. Ben forewent the pinky brush in favor of sliding his whole hand into hers, and Mike moved to put a comforting hand on her other arm. Eddie seemed stuck in a little bit of a limbo - he kept looking between his hands and Bev’s face, as if trying to decide what to do to help, or if he should do anything at all. In the end, he settled for jamming his hands into his pockets.

 

“Do you miss him?” Mike asked carefully.

 

“No,” Bev said, working to keep her voice level. “He was…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. As safe as she felt with the three of them, it wasn’t enough to propel her to talk about all of the horror she’d undergone in her childhood home. Instead, she decided to do the one physical thing she knew could keep her functional. She began to walk, heading out of the Morocco pavilion and towards Japan, and wordlessly, the boys followed behind.

 

To her surprise, the person that scrambled to be the one that walked next to her was Eddie.

 

“Um,” he began, bumping her arm with his in an awkward attempt to instigate a connection. If she were in any other state of mind, the gesture would have made her stomach twist a little bit - poor Eddie was still so sweetly timid about reaching out to other members of the group. He was getting more confident about being in their company, slowly but surely, but it was still devastatingly clear that a part of him was always kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop; for them to decide that they didn’t like him after all and leave him. She had no idea where those insecurities were rooted for him, but they never failed to make her feel sad.

 

It occurred to her in that moment that his unrest surrounding Richie auditioning around and his fear of being left by his friends were probably one in the same. She’d have to address that with him at some point.

 

“Everything okay, sweetheart?” she asked him, taking his hand in a gesture she hoped he would find reassuring.

 

He looked down at their joined hands with a sort of wonder. “I should really be the one asking you that.”

 

Bev smiled at that, and squeezed his hand. “I’m fine, really. Today will end, and years will pass, and I’ll think about him less and less, and be happier and happier for it.”

 

“I wish I had that kind of patience,” Eddie said, finally flicking his giant doe eyes up and over in the direction of her face. “I wish...I wish a lot of things. My mom…”

 

He trailed off in the same way she had earlier when she’d tried to share information about her father, and the roots of the insecurity that he carried with him were suddenly high-definition clear.

 

“They’re not here now,” Bev told him firmly. “Neither of them. We made it. We’re free.”

 

“I don’t think I’ll ever be free of her,” Eddie said quietly, response almost muffled by the din of tourist chatter around them, “especially not while she’s still alive, but. I’m...I’m trying.”

 

Bev didn’t want him to be right about that, but she knew, in the darkest parts of her heart, that he was - that this day was going to be hard for the rest of her life. She didn’t feel right about saying that out loud, though, so she settled for responding by saying, “You’re doing great, Eddie.”

 

He nodded solemnly. “I’ve got to talk to Richie, though. About the thing.”

 

“You do,” she agreed. 

 

“And I do want to have sex with him,” he continued, obviously locked into a particular train of thought, “I want to have sex with him so bad, Bev, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, like of all the guys I could ever want to have sex with, I pick the fucking Jungle Cruise gremlin...but he makes me laugh, and when I’m with him I feel like...like...but she made me think I was so sick, when I was younger, and I’m so  _ scared _ \--”

 

“All in good time,” Bev said, a little frantic to shut down that particular point of conversation before it got more graphic. “It took me a while to feel like I was okay with sex, too...and sometimes it’s still hard.”

 

“With Ben, you have a hard time?” Eddie asked, surprised.

 

“We’ve been taking it slow,” Bev said, wondering if Ben was listening along behind them. “So...I don’t know. It will be different for me, definitely. Ben’s not like anyone I’ve ever been with before.”

 

“You’re right about that,” Mike said, effectively answering her question about whether people were listening along. “He’s better.”

 

“Mike,” Ben protested weakly, coming up to hover just behind Bev’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Bev. I don’t mean to--”

 

“He’s right,” Bev said, trying to infuse those two words with as much warmth as she possibly could. “Don’t apologize, okay? He’s right.”

 

“And to an earlier point,” Mike continued, “can we resolve right now to be better at talking to one another? Stuff’s been bad for long enough.”

 

“I’d like that,” Ben agreed. “Nothing that anyone’s not comfortable with, of course, but I think we can afford to be a little more open. I can, anyway.”

 

Eddie turned around, squinting back at Ben curiously. “What kinds of stuff have you been keeping, Hanscom? I thought you were our no-secrets guy - pure Ben with his big, open Georgia heart.”

 

“Well, for starters,” Ben said mildly, “I’m hungry as hell right now, and my stomach is crying out for me to ask y’all to stop at the Italy gelato cart, but my mind is screaming at me that I don’t need it. Idiot brain seems to think that one ice cream is gonna make me fat again.”

 

They had wandered far enough at that point that they had passed Japan, and were almost through the United States pavilion. Italy was the country they’d be visiting next - Bev could see the gelato stand in the distance.

 

“Oh.” Eddie was absolutely floored. He kept staring back at Ben, and in the process almost tripped over his own feet. “Dude.”

 

Ben shrugged amiably. “Just a bad food day. Not a huge deal.”

 

“Can we start with compromise, then?” Bev asked, slowing her stride so that all four of them could walk in a line. Can we split one, maybe? Ben?”

 

Ben stepped up next to her, took a deep breath, and then nodded slowly. “I think that would be a good idea. Compromise.”

 

Mike laughed. “Yeah, compromise, okay. I’m eating a whole-ass Coppa Amicizia. I deserve it after this bullshit month. Eddie, what do you think?”

 

“Coppa Delizia, Coppa Delizia,” Eddie chanted, bouncing on the tips of his toes. 

 

Bev looked over at Ben again. His face didn’t have the ethereal glow it had in the Morocco temple anymore, but it was hardly just a face. She didn’t know how she could have thought that it was ever just a face. It was compromise incarnate - it was soft words, and understandings, and all of the things that she’d never had when she was growing up in Alvin Marsh’s house.

 

“Are you okay?” he asked, low enough that the other two couldn’t hear him.

 

“Can we be--” she started, trying to choose her words carefully. “I know we’ve been taking it slow, but I want...could we maybe…”

 

“Can we talk about this tomorrow?” he asked softly. “The answer is yes, but I don’t want it to be clouded by what the rest of today means to you. Is that okay?”

 

She wanted to protest - she didn’t want to give Alvin any more agency in her life - but Ben’s face was set, and she knew that he was at least a little right; anything and everything would be better tomorrow.

 

“Compromise,” she agreed, and followed him right up to the counter of the gelato kiosk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my headcanon for Eddie is that he's kind of a collectibles hoarder - he likes Hot Wheels, he likes Hello Kitty and friends, he likes stamps....youuuu name it.
> 
> also, here are the menu description for the things that Eddie and Mike are going to order at the gelato kiosk:
> 
> Coppa Amicizia - Cookies and Cream, cherry and chocolate Gelato topped with Mango Sauce, Whipped Cream and Whole Raspberries [because Mike is a Fruit Man imo]
> 
> Coppa Delizia - Strawberry, Vanilla and stracciatella Gelato topped with Strawberry Sauce, Whipped Cream and Fresh Strawberries [that Eddie strawberry fanon thing!]
> 
> leave me a note in the comments or at skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com! next up: Eddie has some questions to ask and some fears to get over :)


	11. "So This Is Love" (Eddie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This is Richie, mom,” Eddie corrected. “He’s the friend I was telling you about.”
> 
> “Charmed,” Richie grinned, sticking out a hand. “Nice dress. Wish Eds had your sense of style.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey folks! I know it's been a while but this chapter's nice and long and (hopefully) worth it - just know that this /is/ the chapter I was planning in my head when I decided this fic was rated 'M', so....proceed with caution :)

**EDDIE KASPBRAK  
** **CHARACTER ATTENDANT, MAGIC KINGDOM  
** **but more immediately  
** **DISNEY’S GRAND FLORIDIAN HOTEL - NARCOOSSEE’S RESTAURANT  
** **APRIL 20TH  
** **6 P.M.**

 

There was absolutely nothing about Eddie Kaspbrak’s current situation that wasn’t furthering his anxiety.

 

The first thing stressing him out was his location. The Grand Floridian was easily one of the most extravagant hotels on property (if not THE most extravagant), up there with the Yacht Club, where Stan worked...but where the Yacht Club was all smooth lines and calm greys, the Grand Floridian was all frills and in-your-face wealth. Needless to say, it was not a place that Eddie usually made a point to visit. He was more of a  _ ‘visit Stan at work and then sneak over to the Boardwalk’  _ or  _ ‘go with Richie to Art of Animation and then somehow prevent Richie from climbing the giant Ariel statue to try and touch one of her oversized cement boobs’ _ kind of guy.

 

On the subject of Richie...his boyfriend was his second stressor, for a couple of different reasons.

 

He’d pushed himself into initiating the conversation about Richie’s auditions, and he was proud and glad that he’d taken Mike, Ben, and Bev’s advice about biting the bullet with that. Richie had assuaged his fears and more: he’d said essentially what Ben had suggested, namely that he hadn’t told Eddie about auditioning because nothing was set in stone, and that he had no immediate plans to leave Orlando (and by proxy, Eddie).

 

But. BUT. Eddie had been so exhausted from instigating the first conversation that now no follow up conversations were happening, which meant that Eddie was practically swimming in mixed signals. 

 

Sometimes, the stuff that Richie did pointed towards their relationship moving in a specific, productive direction. For example, Richie had started leaving clothes over at Eddie’s apartment, his shampoo and bathroom things were all in Eddie’s shower, and his toothbrush had been sitting right next to Eddie’s toothbrush in Eddie’s Bambi themed toothbrush holder for the better part of a month. That all seemed like pretty significant relationship stuff, and Eddie was pleased with it. 

 

But then - when Richie stayed over (which was pretty much every night), he never initiated anything. They’d been sleeping in the same bed for about a month, now, kind of because they were at that point in their relationship and kind of because Eddie didn’t have a trundle or blow-up mattress or anything, and Richie had been a perfect gentleman the whole time.

 

If it were anyone else, Eddie would assume they were being considerate, but given that it was Richie, the whole thing was really fucking suspicious.

 

And none of that was to say that Eddie was super sure he was ready to have sex. His mother’s paranoia around diseases and sickness meant that Eddie was extremely well aware of all of the different sexually transmitted diseases he could contract, and he was irrationally afraid of all of them, even though he knew each and every preventative method he could take to prevent them (and had faith that Richie would adhere to any of the silly demands he made around using said preventative methods). Still, he was feeling something pretty significant for Richie - some four letter word kind of thing, he suspected - and as time passed, he found himself more and more receptive to the idea of maybe taking things a little further…

 

...but the bottom line about that was that he really,  _ really _ wanted Richie to want to be with him that way, too, and every night that Richie didn’t try anything brought on another wave of paranoid thoughts for Eddie. The whole thing was making him feel stupidly insecure. Was he not attractive enough for Richie? Was he too soft around the edges?

 

On top of all of that, Eddie was also pretty stressed out about the fact that Richie was with him in the Grand Floridian at the moment. If Eddie was feeling a little bit like a fish out of water in a fancy hotel, Richie was that same fish stuck up a tree. He didn’t belong there, and he knew it. He kept tugging at the collar of his loud floral-patterned short-sleeved button-down (the ONE formal short sleeve shirt that Richie owned, much to Eddie’s horror) like he was trying to free himself from a straitjacket. By the end of the night, Eddie imagined that Richie would have the whole thing off and wrapped around his head like a turban, which would be...not ideal. 

 

Eddie wouldn’t have hated the idea of a shirtless Richie on a normal day - heck, he wouldn’t have forced Richie into the shirt at all if things were normal, he would have just let him wander around the lobby half-naked to terrify the posh tourists coming to and from the parks - but obviously, things weren’t normal. Things were actually pretty far from normal, and that was because of the final and greatest source of Eddie’s anxiety.

 

The reason that all of this Grand Floridian nonsense was happening was because his mother was in town. It was the first time she’d gathered the nerve to visit him in his three and a half years in Florida (she was scared of flying, public spaces, and people who didn’t speak English, which made Florida a real source of terror for her), and to say that he was nervous would be understating the situation immensely. He was not the nineteen year old child he’d been the last time they had been together, and she was not going to be happy with the changes he had made.

 

He knew he couldn’t live the way she’d forced him to live, but seeing her was going to make things...difficult.

 

His biggest goal in having her in Florida was to not let her sweep him back up into her vortex. He knew that virtually all of the progress he’d made towards becoming a more genuine version of himself he had made because she wasn’t there, and he didn’t want to fall right back into old routines just because of her crocodile tears and falsified helplessness.

 

That was a big part of the reason why he’d brought Richie to this first dinner with her. After having spent the last four months together, Richie probably knew Eddie better than anyone else on Earth. He knew what made Eddie laugh, he knew that Eddie liked to watch  _ Big Hero 6  _ when he was feeling sick, and  _ Tangled  _ when he was feeling sad...he even knew how Eddie liked to wind blankets around himself at night to remain at a breathable temperature. (Granted, his presence and tendency to coil himself around Eddie like an octopus at night completely negated that last bit of information...but Richie knew it, which was the part that counted.) If Eddie was being fake with his mother, Richie would know, and Richie would call him out on it. Hopefully.

 

Of course, that wasn’t the only reason why Richie was there. His presence was greatly comforting to Eddie, in spite of the fact that he was probably going to run his mouth and ruin dinner...or maybe because of that fact. Either way, Eddie was a more grounded person when Richie was around, even with Richie threatening to burst out of his business-casual clothes.

 

And then...Eddie had also been toying with the idea of coming out to his mother.

 

He hadn’t told Richie about that part. All Richie knew was that Eddie hadn’t disclosed his sexuality to his mother, and for good reason - if he’d told her back in Ohio, she would have either locked him in his room for the rest of his life or sent him to the hospital in an attempt to cure his “illness”, and he might never have recovered.

 

But now - he wasn’t that person anymore. She didn’t have that kind of power over him, and he kind of wanted her to know that. He kind of wanted her to see what was making him happy; to try and get her to understand that he was going to be okay even without her rules and regulations.

 

He even kind of, sort of wanted her to maybe approve of the person that he’d grown into, as fucked up as that sounded. He knew that she had done nothing to deserve his desire for approval, but he couldn’t help himself. She was still his mother, after all.

 

“All right, Eds.” Richie finally broke the silence between them, looking down at Eddie. His hair was already starting to drift by itself back into its usual chaos - Richie had tried to tamp it down that morning, but it had only half-worked as it was, and now that Richie was out of the controlled environment of their apartment, it was probably safe to say that the whole operation had been a lost cause. “Where is the fabled Mrs. K? I didn’t take her for the ‘running late’ type.”

 

“Oh, she’s always late.” Eddie shifted his weight from leg to leg, knowing that the action gave away the fact that his body was close to exploding with nerves and not caring as much as he probably could or should. “It takes her a million years to get ready. She’s so meticulous.”

 

“Like somebody else I know,” Richie teased, grinning and making to pinch Eddie’s cheek, but he quickly retracted his hands upon seeing Eddie’s angry expression. “Okay, yeah, I see where I went wrong with that joke. That’s on me.”

 

“No, no, I’m just all wired up.” Eddie grabbed for the hand Richie had pulled away and put it on his own cheek, screwing his eyes shut. “Pinch away.”

 

Instead of pinching, Richie slid a thumb over Eddie’s cheekbone. Warily, Eddie opened his eyes and began to ask Richie what he was doing, but the soft, worried look on Richie’s face made the words die on his tongue.

 

“She can’t hurt you,” Richie murmured, stepping a little closer to Eddie. Eddie wanted so badly to lose himself in the gesture; wanted to fall against Richie and cling to him until all of the nerves had exited through his clenched fists in the fabric of Richie’s dumb shirt, but he couldn’t. They were risking enough as it was. She could come down the stairs and into the lobby at any minute.

 

“She can,” Eddie said, reluctantly stepping back from Richie, “and she will. You’ll see.”

 

Richie didn’t have time to reply or even look hurt that Eddie had pulled away, because their conversation was interrupted by a loud, “Eddie-bear!”

 

Shuddering, Eddie turned towards the steps to see Sonia Kaspbrak making her way down towards them. 

 

She looked bigger and, oddly, tackier than she had when he’d last seen her, somehow, as if she’d continued to take care of her cosmetic needs but had given up on her general health and wellbeing. She matched the gaudiness of the hotel exactly - her green dress was ghastly, but obviously expensive, and her face was made up so extensively that she kind of looked like all of her features had been drawn on.

 

In short, she looked pretty much exactly like a Disney Villain.

 

“Holy shit,” Richie muttered. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but...holy shit.”

 

“Hi mom,” Eddie said, ignoring Richie’s comment in favor of trying to make his voice sound like he was 21 and not 13. “Flight okay? Check-in reasonable?”

 

“Flight was a disaster,” she complained, finally reaching the bottom of the stairs and beginning on the short cross over to where they were standing by reception. “Disgusting patrons, excessive turbulence. The return trip might just kill me.”

 

“I’m sorry,” offered Eddie coolly, not wanting to engage with the topic in case it turned racist (and it would probably turn racist). “How’s the room?”

 

“Suitable,” she said, which was more complimentary than Eddie had expected. He’d put her up at the Grand Floridian because he knew that she’d have a meltdown virtually anywhere else, and he was grateful for his own foresight with that, even if it did mean that he’d all but cleaned out his bank account.

 

She had finally waddled herself close enough to reach out and grab Eddie at that point, and grab she did - she was far stronger than he remembered, and he found himself a little short of breath as she yanked him in and smashed his head against her shoulder. She held him for about ten seconds more than what was comfortable, and then pulled back to examine him more closely.

 

Her expression immediately soured, and Eddie bit back a groan. Here came the insults.

 

“Edward, what have you done with your hair?” She reached out and touched one of the small curls by his ears gingerly, as if it could jump out and bite her. “I’m sure people find it unprofessional.”

 

“It’s still Disney look, ma,” he said, knowing that she’d be more lenient upon being reminded of the strict Disney dress and grooming code all employees were expected to follow.

 

“And who is this?” Sonia’s attention had jumped from Eddie’s appearance uncharacteristically quickly. There was only one eyesore who could have possibly distracted Sonia from her son, and Eddie clenched his fists, willing this moment to pass without incident. “Do you work here? You’ve been standing here for a long time.”

 

“This is Richie, mom,” Eddie corrected. “He’s the friend I was telling you about.”

 

“Charmed,” Richie grinned, sticking out a hand. “Nice dress. Wish Eds had your sense of style.”

 

Sonia ignored Richie’s attempt at a handshake in favor of raking her eyes judgmentally over Richie’s face. While she performed her 360 degree scan, Eddie took a moment to stomp lightly on Richie’s foot as quiet revenge for his comment.

 

“Asshole,” he mouthed, and Richie grinned harder, putting his hand down and into his pocket. He didn’t seem fazed by Sonia ignoring his handshake - rather, he looked like he had been expecting it, and Eddie felt unexpectedly warm at the nonchalant way that Richie was handling things. Richie was so frigging  _ capable _ , especially in social situations, and it was making Eddie’s heart beat kind of erratically against his ribcage - or maybe that was his old phantom asthma making a reappearance? There was no way of telling, really.

 

“Richie, short for Richard?” She finally asked.

 

“Of course,” Richie said. “The only people who call me Richard are my parents when they’re angry, though. Most people call me Richie - or Dick, but that one’s reserved for special situations.” He winked at Eddie, and Eddie felt furious heat rise to his cheeks. Damn it.

 

“The three of us have dinner reservations,” Eddie reminded her quickly, “five minutes from now, at Narcoossee’s. We should walk over.”

 

Sonia nodded slowly, eyes still locked on the obnoxious pattern on Richie’s shirt. “Right.”

 

They began the slow, torturous trek across the lobby. Eddie and Richie flanked Sonia, both seemingly under the same understanding: if they were next to each other, they would touch each other, and under the circumstances that was probably not a good idea. Sonia, for her part, just kept talking, oblivious to the meaningful eye contact the two boys were making over her head.

 

“Where did you meet my Eddie, Richard?”

 

Eddie could almost see Richie swallow down the hundreds of joke locations that inevitably popped into his mind. “I work in the Magic Kingdom with him. We met on-location, in Adventureland.”

 

“Are you a character?” She narrowed her eyes, obviously trying to sort him into a movie, and Eddie sent up a quick prayer to anyone that might be listening for her to not say Goofy, because that would catapult them into weeks of Richie effectively becoming a human meme, and Eddie was  _ not  _ in the mood.

 

“I--” Richie tried, but Sonia had made up her mind.

 

“Prince Eric,” she guessed, and Eddie couldn’t help but sigh in relief. “He has that same unwieldy hair.”

 

“Unwieldy?” Richie, who hadn’t seen his reflection since he’d left the house, touched his hair in confusion, and then winced when he felt that it was back to its usual nonsense. “Oh. Well, I mean...I guess? Eric’s hair always seemed kind of flat to me.”

 

Sonia frowned. “Well, of course it might have seemed that way. To you.”

 

“Come on, they’re waiting.” The Narcoossee’s check-in counter was immediately ahead, and Eddie wasted no time in pulling them both up there, effectively ending their conversation. “Kaspbrak, party of three. We have a 6:15 reservation.”

 

The hostess nodded, adjusting her ‘Chris’ nametag idly. Eddie’s eyes gravitated towards it, and he wondered vaguely what her real name was. Anyone who had a tag that said they were named ‘Chris’ and from Orlando had almost certainly lost their own nametag and borrowed one from costuming.

 

Richie had noticed, too, and couldn’t help but blurt out, “Chris from Orlando, huh?”

 

The hostess jerked her head up with a sheepish, surprised smile. “Oh. Yeah, I’m Ashley. Cast members, huh?”

 

Eddie nodded. “Character attendant in MK.”

 

“Jungle Cruise,” Richie said, sliding his thumbs through his belt loops and doing a really bad job of pretending he wasn’t smug about his placement.

 

Her eyes widened in awe...and something else, something that was making Eddie want to edge back over towards Richie and cling on to his sleeve posessively. “Jungle? Wow, that’s amazing. I bet you have so many stories - you must be, like, King of the Jungle over there, what with your--”

 

“Do you have any specials,” Eddie almost shouted, trying desperately to shut things down without his mother noticing.

 

Ashley blinked, frowned, and then shook her head. “Just menu items, unfortunately. Come on, let’s get you seated.”

 

They followed Ashley into the restaurant. Eddie walked immediately behind her, trying to put distance between her and Richie...but unfortunately, that meant that Richie was stuck closer to Sonia.

 

“What is the Jungle Cruise?” Eddie heard his mother ask. He turned slightly just in time to see her nose wrinkle in preemptive distaste.

 

“One of the attractions in the Magic Kingdom,” Richie explained, as if he’d done it a thousand times (and he probably had, to his own parents). “Just a little water ride around some plastic show scenes. I drive the bote and tell jokes.”

 

“Jokes?” Sonia asked, disdain dripping from her voice.

 

“Jokes,” Richie confirmed, speeding up his walk as they reached their table.

 

“All right, here we are.” Ashley set down menus on a table set for four, and they all climbed into their seats - Richie slid in next to Eddie on one side, because no-touching policies be damned, apparently, and Sonia sat on the other next to an empty chair. “If you need anything else, Jungle Man, just--”

  
“We’re fine, thanks,” Eddie said, glowering at her for good measure, and he felt Richie start to shake with silent laughter next to him. Fucking asshole.

 

Ashley looked curiously between the two of them, and then the situation visibly dawned on her. She looked down at Eddie apologetically. “Oh. Oh, I...okay, yeah. Enjoy your meal.” She walked away quickly, obviously not wanting to remain with them for longer than she had to.

 

Embarrassed, Eddie turned his eyes back towards Richie, who was still snickering. “Cut it out, Rich.” If he weren’t in front of his mother, he would have used a far dirtier word, but the situation was what it was.

 

“You’re so damn cute,” Richie replied, eyes shiny with tears of laughter. Eddie’s stomach swooped, and then froze, and he turned back to his mother quickly, hoping she hadn’t been paying attention.

 

She hadn’t, thank God. Her head was buried in her menu.

 

“Anything good, mama?” Eddie asked, pulling a menu of his own towards him and glancing down at it. The first thing that caught his eye was the prices, and he couldn’t help but wince - fuck, he’d forgotten that everything at the Grand Floridian was so goddamn  _ expensive. _

 

“Lots of fish served here, it seems,” she said, squinting disapprovingly at the menu options.

 

“I know,” Eddie said carefully, “I sent you the menu a few weeks ago in an email. You said it looked okay when I asked you about it on the phone.”

 

“Oh, I don’t actually know anything about the internet, Eddie-bear. You know that.” She put down her menu and folded it back up. “But I’ll live with filet mignon. Have you boys made your choices?”

 

Eddie could practically sense sweat starting to gather at Richie’s hairline. There was no doubt in Eddie’s mind that he was scanning for less expensive options for entrees and coming up empty.

 

“We’re both gonna get the shrimp and campanelle pasta,” Eddie told her, intentionally choosing the cheapest thing on the menu. Richie looked up at him in alarm - it was still a $39 plate, after all - and Eddie allowed himself the luxury of sliding his hand over and wrapping a pinky around Richie’s pointer finger assuringly. “I’ll pay,” he mouthed, and Richie’s eyebrows shot up.

 

“Eds--” he made to protest, but Eddie slid his whole hand over Richie’s in response, which effectively shut him up.

 

“Are you sure?” Sonia asked, looking between the two of them as if trying to parse out what was going on between them. “I can cover the bill if you need, Edward. And you as well, Richard - you don’t seem as though you’ve had a proper meal in a while.”

 

Richie clearly wasn’t sure how to respond to that backhanded comment, so Eddie did the honors.

 

“Richie eats fine, mom.” He gave her as sharp of a look as he could manage without feeling bad. “We’re sure.”

 

“If you say so.” Sonia shuffled backwards in her chair. She wasn’t usually one to back down from an argument, but arguments about money were different than those about Eddie’s emotional wellbeing, so Eddie wasn’t really surprised that she was going to let him handle it.

 

“So Eddie tells me you’ve lived in Ohio all your life?” Richie asked, fingers twitchy under Eddie’s hand.

 

“Yes,” Sonia confirmed, “Akron, Ohio. It’s always been my family’s home.” She fixed Eddie with a meaningful look at that, as if he’d betrayed her by leaving, and Eddie felt a little bit like he’d been punched. She was starting in with the manipulations early, and he had been caught off guard. “I had hoped it would always be my family’s home.”

 

“The world outside of Akron is nice, too,” Eddie defended himself weakly.

 

“I think it would be better if you came home,” she told him, apparently not interested in pulling her punches. Eddie blinked back at her in surprise - he hadn’t expected her to be so blunt, especially in front of company. “I don’t like this place, Edward, and I don’t like to see how it’s changed you.”

 

“You’ve been here for like, an hour,” Eddie protested, but she was not interested in any of his interjections.

 

“The way you speak to me now is…” Sonia paused, searching for the word she wanted. She came up short, and spat through the rest of the sentence red-faced. “I don’t think this would have happened to you if you’d stayed with me. I knew it was a bad idea to let you go. You haven’t even talked about coming home since you came down here--”

 

“Plane tickets are expensive,” cut in Richie. He was obviously trying to help, but Eddie wished he hadn’t said anything, because now her attention had been diverted.

 

“And if  _ this _ is the company you keep,” she continued, turning her fiery eyes towards Richie, “if you’ve been spending all your time with wild-headed boys who tell jokes for a living instead of the serious, hard-working girls I’ve met in church group in Akron that I so desperately want you to meet--”

 

“I do other things.” Richie wasn’t shouting in response to Sonia’s heated accusations, which was a little surprising giving Richie’s tendency to escalate situations, but his eyes were dark and angry in a way that Eddie had never seen them before. “I just got a part in a show at the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre. It’s a paying gig - and a tragedy, to boot. Very serious...and hey, I might even have to work hard, too.”

 

Eddie felt like his midsection had dropped right out of him - like he was the Tower of Terror hotel structure, and his stomach was the elevator.

 

Richie had gotten  _ what  _ now?

 

“Were you going to tell me about that?” he blurted, mouth moving of its own volition.

 

Richie looked back at him warily. It was obvious that it hadn’t occurred to him that he hadn’t yet told Eddie about this new development. “I….I was getting to it?”

 

“Richie,” Eddie choked, trying to push the traitorous tears that were forming behind his eyes back, “Why? Sorry, I...I just don’t get why you wouldn’t...do you not want me to know? Do you not...do you not like me, do you not trust me--” 

 

“No, Eds, no,” Richie said, quickly lacing his fingers together with Eddie’s and putting their joined hands on the table. “Nobody knew until just now, I promise. I just...I don’t know what to do with myself and where I want to go from here, I guess? So...I wanted to try and get my own shit together, I think, before I brought it to other people. It’s a me thing. This has nothing to do with our relationship. Okay? I’m sorry - I’m so sorry.”

 

“You don’t have to do everything alone,” Eddie said, stomach almost back in place but not quite. “You’ve gotta let people help you when choices like these come along. Me, Stan, Bill, Bev...anyone, really, just--”

 

Sonia cleared her throat loudly from the other side of the table, and Eddie and Richie both jumped. Eddie couldn’t believe it. He’d almost forgotten she was there - for the first time in his life, he’d been in a room with his mother and had been less than hyper-aware of her presence. 

 

“Relationship?” she asked, voice like ice, and Eddie clapped his hands over his mouth retroactively.

 

Fuck. That had not been anything like the way in which he’d planned to potentially come out to his mother.

 

Beside him, Richie had gone pale, and was running his hands through his hair, pushing it back into its usual craziness for good. “Mrs. K., I really….I don’t….”

 

“Yeah, mom,” Eddie cut in, staring at the tablecloth and trying to glean strength from it. It didn’t come, but he pressed ahead anyways. “Richie and I are involved. Romantically.”

 

Richie scooted over so they were pressed together, thigh to thigh, and he squeezed Eddie’s hand a little bit harder. Eddie drew in a sharp breath at the sweet support - the  _ intimacy _ that Richie was providing in the face of this horrifying moment.  _ I’m here _ , his gestures screamed. _ I’m here, I’m with you, I’m not leaving - even for a stupid show at the stupid Orlando Shakespeare Theatre, I’m not leaving. _

 

The four letter word that started with ‘L’ extracted itself from the back of Eddie’s mind and made its way to the front and center of his frontal lobe, and he squeezed Richie’s hand back, feeling dizzy.

 

Sonia stayed silent for a moment, and then looked back at the two of them blankly.

 

“Perhaps it would be better to postpone dinner until tomorrow,” she said, taking obvious pains to keep herself under control. “Can you make us a reservation somewhere, Edward? Just us? I need to take some time now to lie down.”

 

Eddie nodded, and felt relief trickle down his arms and chest like a waterfall. “I’ll text you a time and location. Do you need help getting to your room?”

 

“No,” she said. “If you could settle things with the staff here--”

 

“Done and done,” Eddie promised. “We’ll go. Richie?”

 

Richie stood up as soon as Eddie said his name. He had been ready to go before the dinner had even begun, and his excitement to leave was wholly transparent in that moment. “Yeah, let’s go talk to Ashley. Sorry, Mrs. K.”

 

Sonia didn’t respond apart from leaning her head against her hand in shock, or despair, or some mix of the two.

 

“See you tomorrow, mama,” Eddie said quietly, and then he and Richie were off, snaking through the tables and heading back towards the check-in counter. 

 

“Are you gonna be okay with her tomorrow?” Richie asked, concern in his voice and in the crease of his brow. 

 

“Yeah, I can handle it,” Eddie said, and to his surprise, he found himself actually believing his own words. “Go schmooze with your new girlfriend.”

 

“Your possessiveness is so fucking sexy, you know that?” Richie whispered, flushing a little, and Eddie felt the words through his body like an electric shock.  _ Sexy, sexy, sexy. _

 

He kept his eyes glued to Richie’s back as Richie settled things with Ashley, and he couldn’t help but let his mind wander a little bit every time that Richie shifted or rolled his shoulders back. The energy between them had changed dramatically in the last three minutes, and he knew it was probably just the adrenaline of having finally stood up and given his mother a glimpse of his true self, but that knowledge wasn’t stopping his mind from chanting  _ Richie, Richie, Richie _ like his name was a song that Eddie never wanted to take off of repeat.

 

When Richie came back over, Eddie surged up into his arms, touch-starved after the last hour of forced separation.

 

“Whoa, hey,” Richie said, wrapping his arms around Eddie and rubbing soothing circles into his shoulder blades. “You okay there, sweetheart? I can’t believe you just did that. You’re so fucking brave.”

 

Eddie pulled back a little bit and looked up at Richie, trying to convey at least a fraction of what he was feeling through his eyes, his expression, the way he was gripping Richie’s forearms. It took Richie a second to understand, but when he got it, he  _ got _ it. He grabbed Eddie’s hand and started tugging him in the direction of the front door of the Floridian.

 

“Thank fuck we drove,” Eddie heard him mutter as they tore towards the parking lot. “Parking costs be fucking damned.”

 

After the longest, tensest car ride of his life (and Richie’s, too, Eddie was sure), they were back at Eddie’s apartment. Eddie raced up the stairs, fumbling nervously for his keys, and heard Richie hot on his heels.

 

“God,” Richie said, finally breaking the silence that had gotten thicker and thicker every single moment that they had spent in the car together. “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?”

 

Eddie stopped, frozen with the remembrance of the past month’s worth of nights. “Um. That...depends on if you want to?”

 

He turned around to see Richie staring down at him in disbelief, blue eyes startling in the low light of the hallway.

 

“Eddie,” Richie said slowly, “it’s literally all I’ve thought about since October of last year. Every single moment of every single day.”

 

Eddie couldn’t help the blush that spread itself across his features at that. “But you never--”

 

“It’s not that I didn’t want to! After all the shit that went down in the fall I just didn’t want to push my idiot luck...and also it’s been a long time for me, which is kind of freaking me out, not going to lie, like...what if I’m not good, you know? And I’ve never done it with a dude...what if you don’t like it? What if you break up with me--”

 

Richie looked away, and Eddie huffed out a disbelieving laugh. “Me, break up with you? You’re the big time actor, now.”

 

“Oh, no.” It was Richie’s turn to flush red. “No, no. Not at all. It’s just a little thing, and you’re the priority, obviously…” He looked back up at Eddie, familiar concern in his tone. “Have you been worried about that? Like, seriously worried?”

 

Eddie nodded quickly, hunching his shoulders up in embarrassment. “Never mind it, though. It doesn’t matter now.”

 

“Why not?” Richie stepped in towards him, crowding him in towards the door.

 

“Because you just showed me,” Eddie said, almost whispering, “you stood up to my mom with me, Richie, you did that for me. I don’t need any more proof than that to know that you’re not going anywhere.”

 

“I’m never going anywhere,” Richie confirmed, and closed the space between their mouths, kissing Eddie firmly. Eddie sank into the kiss for a quick moment, then pulled off with a pop and went back to his keys.

 

“Inside,” he explained, laughing at Richie’s impatient whine. “Wanna do this right.”

 

As soon as Eddie’s clumsy hands finally got them inside the apartment, Richie was kicking the door closed and advancing on Eddie. He scooped his hands under Eddie’s thighs and picked him right up, wobbling down the hallway with Eddie cradled precariously in his noodly arms, and Eddie couldn’t help but make a high, needy noise as Richie’s fingers dug into the flesh of his thighs. Being manhandled usually made Eddie feel weak, but he knew Richie didn’t think Eddie was weak, so instead now it was just.. _.hot,  _ even with the very real understanding that Richie was probably going to drop him sooner rather than later.

 

“Can’t believe you thought I didn’t want you,” Richie mumbled, chasing Eddie’s mouth sloppily. Eddie brushed his lips back against Richie’s in response, kissing at his top lip and pointedly not responding to Richie’s question. “What did you think was pressed up against your leg when we woke up all sweaty and tangle-y, hm? How did you not notice how much effort it took me to pull back from all those times we made out during movies on the couch--”

 

Eddie pulled back a little bit once Richie’s words registered in his brain. “That was your dick?! I thought it was your phone! I thought you slept with your phone in your pocket!”

 

Richie laughed breathlessly, pushing Eddie back and through the door of the bedroom. He set him down on the bed and stared at him for a second, as if he couldn’t believe his own luck. “My phone, huh?” He started climbing over Eddie, running a finger lightly up his clothed chest as he approached his face. “I think my ego just grew three sizes.”

 

“I hope that’s not also true of your dick,” Eddie said, genuinely alarmed, “because Jesus  _ Christ _ , Richie! It never even occurred to me that--”

 

“Shhh,” Richie said, leaning down to nuzzle his nose against Eddie’s. “Don’t freak out, okay? You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with--”

 

In response, Eddie wiggled out a little bit from under Richie, and pulled his shirt off.

 

“As long as we use protection,” Eddie said, “and I don’t get an STD and die, I’m all set.”

 

Richie sat back on his heels and laughed, using the moment to make quick work of his own shirt. “You can’t die from STDs, Eds. Not that I have any, but.”

 

“And you can’t contract them through the air, either,” Eddie retorted hotly, referring back to a story Stan had told him a while ago about a ‘never have I ever’ game they’d played, “so go get a condom, genius.”

 

“Bossy,” Richie teased, but he didn’t sound upset about it. In fact, he sounded more than a little turned on, and Eddie turned that thought over in his head as Richie headed to the bathroom to grab materials. 

 

When Richie returned, Eddie was ready with a little plan that he was pretty sure would be good for both of them.

 

“On your back,” Eddie commanded once Richie had set the condoms and lube on the nightstand. “On your bed, on your back, lose the pants.”

 

Richie’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. “Eds?”

 

“Do it,” Eddie barked, and Richie wasted no more time in stripping down and lying back. Eddie took a moment to drink in the sight in front of him, and felt a jolt of heat in his lower stomach when he saw that Richie was noticeably half-hard in his boxers.

 

“You really are huge,” Eddie whispered, staring unabashedly down at Richie’s crotch. “You weren’t kidding.”

 

“Not kidding,” Richie explained, the beginnings of a smirk playing at his lips. “Bragging.”

 

“Fuck.” Eddie licked his lips and pushed himself on to the bed, straddling Richie and capturing his lips in another wet, messy kiss. “Fuck, Richie.”

 

He tangled his hands in Richie’s hair and tugged a little bit, experimentally grinding his still-clothed ass back against Richie’s crotch, and Richie groaned wantonly, panting into Eddie’s mouth.

 

“Eds,” he whispered back, arching up against him. “Tell me what else you want me to do.”

 

“Wait,” Eddie instructed, popping the button on his jeans and pushing them down, kicking them off when they pooled around his ankles. “Just…”

 

With a small smile, Richie arched up into him again, and the friction between them now that Eddie’s jeans weren’t in the way almost had Eddie collapsing down into Richie’s chest.

 

“You fucker.” Eddie flicked at Richie’s nipple, and Richie cackled quietly. “Won’t be laughing when I….hold on…”

 

He started grinding down again, since that seemed to work last time. He ground his ass back and forth along Richie’s quickly hardening length, and Richie threw his head back against the pillows, baring his neck.

 

“Eds, please,” he hissed as Eddie bent down to suck at his collarbone, running his tongue along the freckled expanse of his shoulder. “It’s been almost three fucking years, have mercy.”

 

“It’s been twenty-one years, here,” Eddie retorted, feeling his ears go hot. “So.”

 

Richie blinked up at him, dazed. “How’d I get so lucky, then? The first man Eddie Kaspbrak’s ever taken to bed?”

 

That four letter word was needling at Eddie’s brain again. Eddie didn’t let it stick around - he exiled it, choosing instead to focus on rutting against Richie and licking his way into his mouth.

 

“Let me get my underwear off, Eds,” Richie murmured, fidgeting around to get his hands hooked in the waistband of his own boxer-briefs. “I don’t want to come in them like I’m seventeen, even if that is what this fucking feels like--”

 

“Okay.” Eddie swallowed his nervousness at being fully naked, fully vulnerable in front of Richie, and snaked his hands towards the waistband of his own briefs. “Uh. Me too, I guess.”

 

He sat back and wiggled out of his underwear, fighting against his self-conscious brain’s screams of  _ too soft, too weird, too susceptible to disease in being naked _ , and when he looked back up, his whole mouth went dry. 

 

Richie was sprawled out like the giraffe that he was, all limbs and elbows and dark body hair and sharpness, and he was looking about as self-conscious as Eddie was feeling. He met Eddie’s eyes and flushed, hand ghosting towards his hard cock as if he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to obscure it from Eddie’s vision or stroke it.

 

“You’re so beautiful, Richie,” Eddie said, with his heart in his throat.

 

“Eddie,” Richie said quietly in response, and it was so soft, so sweet, that Eddie was absolute putty in his hands. Whatever Richie said next, whatever he wanted, he would get. “Remember what I said about, uh….thinking about this?”

 

“Yeah?” Eddie said, shaking with the effort of not covering himself up.

 

“I could never have imagined,” he said, eyes raking over Eddie’s body, and Eddie’s heart soared when he realized that the look in Richie’s eyes was the absolute opposite of the disgust that Eddie was sure he would feel. “ _ Fuck _ , baby, look at you.”

 

Before Eddie could register what was happening, Richie was positioned between his legs. Eddie could feel Richie’s hot breath against the tip of his dick, and he clapped a hand over his mouth to prevent himself from making any embarrassing noises.

 

Richie pulled his hand away. “Wanna hear you,” he explained. “If that’s okay, if this is okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Eddie squeaked, feeling like he was at the top of the hill of a roller coaster. “Yes.”

 

Richie grinned, opened his mouth, and took Eddie in, working his way down with increasing amounts of confidence. Eddie made a strangled noise before he could contain himself, and tangled a hand in Richie’s hair, pulling sharply.

 

Richie’s resulting moan vibrated down Eddie’s dick in a way that made Eddie writhe, and he knew for certain in that moment that he wasn’t going to last very long.

 

He was right. A couple more bobs of Richie’s head coupled with Richie’s talented tongue at work (Eddie was having a hard time believing that he hadn’t done this before), and he was just about there. He tugged at Richie’s curls anxiously, wanting to let him know that he was close.

 

The tugging didn’t help. In fact, it seemed to spur Richie on - he moaned again, and Eddie came with a small cry, spilling himself into Richie’s perfect, perfect mouth.

 

Richie pulled off with a gasp, swallowing in surprise. He managed to get most of it down, but some of it was dribbling down his chin, and Eddie couldn’t tear his eyes off of the little of it he could see.  _ He’d done that. _ Richie looked completely wrecked, absolutely debauched, and had cum running down his chin...and it was Eddie Kaspbrak’s doing.  _ Fuck. _

 

He reached out, delicately swiped the cum off of Richie’s chin, and wiped it on the bedspread, surveying the rest of Richie’s face with some concern. “I’m so sorry, Rich--”

 

“That was so fucking hot,” Richie croaked, smiling dopily back at Eddie. “Holy shit, Eds.”

 

“Oh.” Eddie had no fucking idea how to respond to that, so he fidgeted with his hands for a second before moving them up to stroke through Richie’s hair. “You, too, obviously. I mean...I don’t--”

  
Richie shut him up by kissing him, slow and sweet. “Was it good?”

 

“So good,” Eddie said between kisses. “So fucking good, Richie, even if we didn’t use a condom and I probably have syphilis now--.”

 

“Don’t ever think that I don’t want you again,” Richie said, “okay? Don’t even let the thought cross your mind.”

 

“Richie--”

 

“Say it.” Richie pulled back slightly. “Tell me you know that I want you.”

 

Eddie shifted, covering himself a little bit like he’d wanted to from the beginning. “I know you want me….”

 

“Eddie,” Richie chastised him, tugging him back so he was in the same position he was in before. “Look at me. I want you, always. Tell me that you know that.”

 

Eddie took a deep breath, leaned his forehead against Richie’s, and squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to believe Richie’s words.

 

“You want me,” he said, more sure this time. “You’ll always want me. And I’ll always want you, Rich. Promise.”

 

He could almost feel Richie’s smile light up his whole body. “Good.”

 

Suddenly, Eddie remembered that there was still something left to resolve. He drew back, looking down at Richie frantically. “Oh, shit, Richie, I’m so sorry...let me help you--”

 

There was a wet spot on the sheets that Eddie hadn’t remembered being there before, and the sheets were bunched as if someone had rutted down into them. Richie grinned sheepishly as he followed the path of Eddie’s eyes, and shrugged as if to say,  _ couldn’t help it. _

 

“Told you,” he said, “like I’m seventeen.”

 

Eddie threw his head back and laughed, pulling himself into Richie’s embrace and giggling madly, wildly, freely into his shoulder.

 

“Thank you,” he said, body still shaking with laughter.

 

“I love you,” Richie responded, whispering it into Eddie’s ear like it was the most precious secret he’d ever tell, and Eddie couldn’t help the million-volt smile that made its way across his face. 

 

There were still some things to be resolved, but in that moment, it seemed that he really had nothing to be anxious about at all.

 

“I love you, too, Richie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY, SOME PURE UNADULTERATED FLUFFY CONTENT
> 
> shouts to the folks on Tumblr who helped me pick out some fave Disney movies for our Eds! he really is a Rapunzel kid, isn't he?
> 
> anyways - come have a chatski with me in the comments or at skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com <3


	12. "Cantina Song" (Stan)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Chocolate Darth Vader,” Stan continued, trying to save them both some embarrassment. “Or was it this Jabba the Hutt….thing?”
> 
> Mike squinted at the menu, paying special attention to what was apparently a new item as of this year’s Star Wars Weekend. “That is the ugliest fucking cupcake I’ve ever seen in my life.”
> 
> “Can’t be uglier than Eddie’s mom!”

**STANLEY URIS**   
**FRONT DESK COORDINATOR, YACHT CLUB RESORT**   
**but more immediately**   
**DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS**   
**MAY 4TH**   
**11 A.M.**

**“** It’s not that I don’t think Star Wars looks interesting,” Stan explained for what felt like the zillionth time that day. “Aesthetically, I’m all about it. I saw a PBS special one time about how they painted some of the sets - that was really cool.”

 

“So the reason you haven’t seen any of the films is…”

 

“Purely meme-related, yes.” Stan sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “I don’t understand what’s so hard to grasp about that.”

 

“Everything, Stan!” Mike all but shouted (though there was a tell-tale wobbliness to his voice that suggested he was on the verge of laughter). “Everything!”

 

Star Wars Weekend was one of the more baffling annual events on property for Stan. Aside from his never having seen the movies, Stan also wasn’t sure why the entire shebang took place in Hollywood Studios (his least favorite park), especially because the Star Wars Land expansion wasn’t even finished yet. All Studios had to offer for the event was boring old motion-simulator Star Tours and the giant stomp robot it was housed in ( _“the AT-AT, Stan,”_ Mike had sighed at least 15 times in the past hour alone). That said, though, Mike _loved_ Star Wars and had apparently been looking forward to getting his picture taken with the round rolling robot ( _“he has a name, Stan, call him BB-8!”_ ) for quite some time now. Since February and the veritable relationship shitstorm they’d weathered, Stan had been extra determined to compromise wherever he could to show Mike that he was in this for the long run, and as compromises ran, Star Wars Weekend wasn’t a bad one by any means.

 

“Do you want me to watch the movies, Mike?” he asked, resigned.

 

Mike laughed and pulled up the bottom of his Rebel Alliance shirt to mop the sweat off of his face. Stan didn’t even bother to hide the way his eyes slid down to Mike’s newly exposed stomach, and made a mental note to ask a Cast Member how long Star Tours was so he could gauge whether or not it was feasible to fool around on the ride. (So far, they’d managed some light groping on the 11 minute ride through the Haunted Mansion, and would have gotten even farther on Pirates except that Stan had Richie’s voice in his head the whole time reminding him of _“all the fuckin’ shit I’ve seen on those cameras, Stan, I swear to whatever Jewish God you pray to”.)_

 

“I should have asked if you liked Star Wars, like...weeks ago,” Mike said sadly. “I guess I just assumed. I’m sorry.”

 

“No worries,” Stan assured him, putting a comforting and not at all lascivious hand on his bicep. “I love Star Wars Weekend. It’s like living in another country for two days. I don’t understand shit about what’s going on, but the food is good and it’s pretty fucking funny if you play your cards right.”

 

“Another country?” Mike smiled. “Another planet, more like.”

 

Stan laughed. “Now you’re getting it. Speaking of miscommunications, do we have word from Richie and Eddie?”

 

“Operation double date is a go,” Mike confirmed, pulling out his phone to double check his texts. “Eddie said they’d be here in like twenty minutes.”

 

“Cool,” Stan said, and was surprised to find that he meant it. Richie had been in the apartment less and less as his relationship with Eddie had gotten more and more serious, which had culminated in Stan seeing Richie maybe twice over the entirety of the past two weeks. (Stan hoped that meant that they were finally having sex. It would be such a relief to know that Richie had built himself back up to a place where he was finally ready to make that happen.) Stan would never admit it to Richie’s face, but he was starting to miss having Richie around. He was running out of things to clean in the apartment, because no one was around to leave dishes in the sink or leave toothpaste smeared across the bathroom counter. It should have been a relief, but instead it was weird. He’d had Richie around for so long that the idiot had become a central part of his daily routines, and while he was happy that his friend was finally getting his shit together, it was going to be tough to reimagine his life with less Richie.

 

But. That was a problem for Later Stan.

 

“So,” Mike continued, “I was thinking maybe we grab food and then head for character meet-and-greets once they arrive? I’ve been waiting to eat chocolate Darth Vader cake all day, and if we don’t do that before Richie shows up, he’ll try to steal off of our plates.”

 

“True!” Stan brightened at the idea of food. He’d seen people walking around with some kind of blue drink that he’d been dying to try all day. “I think they’ve got cupcakes and stuff at that bakery over by Sunset?”

 

Mike shrugged. “Sounds right. It’ll be deserted over there, too - no one wants to ride Tower of Terror during Star Wars Weekend. Wanna walk?”

 

“I do,” Stan said, taking up a brisk pace towards the Sunset Boulevard themed area of the park. “I might be wrong about the cupcakes, though. I really don’t know this park at all. I only come here with Richie.”

 

“Let me guess,” Mike said knowingly, following Stan across the park, “he takes you here because he likes to feel like he’s doing better than someone at the Toy Story Midway Mania game.”

 

Stan almost stopped in his tracks. “How did you know?”

 

“He took me here the first time we hung out solo, too,” Mike said, catching up with Stan during his momentary lull and taking his hand. Stan couldn’t help but smile a little bit at the gesture, even though he was sure he’d drop Mike’s hand sooner rather than later - May in Florida meant that things were already almost unbearably muggy. “I think he takes everyone here so that he can gauge their Toy Story shooting skills.”

 

“And you were better than him?” Stan guessed.

 

“I wasn’t worse,” Mike agreed. “His hand-eye coordination needs some serious work.”

 

“No, my hand-eye coordination needs some serious work,” Stan sighed, spotting the bakery he was thinking of and making a beeline for it with Mike in tow. “Richie just can’t see. He has to wear the 3D glasses on top of his regular glasses.”

 

“Well, if we ever ride that ride together, I’ll let you win, sweetheart,” Mike promised, and Stan reached up to pull his curls desperately down over his ears so as to hide how red they’d just gotten. Mike really was the least selfish person on Earth. How had he, Stanley Uris, gotten so lucky?

 

But...now wasn’t the time to reflect on selfishness, because that would just make both of them a little bit sad. Neither of them had reached out to Bill at all since early March, and while they’d admitted to one another that they felt a little bit like they hadn’t given him enough of a chance (although Mike still felt worse about it than Stan did - it was in Mike’s nature to hope for change, and it was in Stan’s nature to know that things were going to stay the same), their residual guilt hadn’t been enough to warrant a check-in with their ex-partner just yet.

 

It would have to be soon, though - they both knew that. The seven of them were booked to visit Anaheim in just two short months, and if they weren’t amiable by then, Bev would kill them.

 

Soon wasn’t now, though. They’d be ready when they were ready.

 

“Let’s just never ride that ride together, okay?” Stan suggested, stopping in front of the bakery and checking out the menu signs out front. “Is this the cupcake you wanted?”

 

“Are these the droids I’m looking for?” Mike joked, but it fell on deaf ears. Stan knew a fair amount of Star Wars jokes as a result of his longtime dedication to r/funny (and he was absolutely positive that they’d be made less funny by his actually having seen the films, he just knew it, which was the real, core reason why he hadn’t bitten the bullet and watched the goddamn movies), but he had long since resigned himself to the fact that there were some references he was just never going to get.

 

“Chocolate Darth Vader,” Stan continued, trying to save them both some embarrassment. “Or was it this Jabba the Hutt….thing?”

 

Mike squinted at the menu, paying special attention to what was apparently a new item as of this year’s Star Wars Weekend. “That is the ugliest fucking cupcake I’ve ever seen in my life.”

 

“Can’t be uglier than Eddie’s mom!”

 

Fuck. Eddie’s stupid homing beacon brain had obviously struck again. Sighing heavily, Stan smoothed down his navy polo and turned around to greet his roommate.

 

“Hello Stan!” Eddie was three steps ahead of Richie, beaming as he bounded across the red concrete towards them. The shirt he was wearing had really obviously belonged to Richie at some point - the first clue was that it was white with Han Solo silhouetted in black on the front (Eddie didn’t know shit about Star Wars), and the second was that Eddie was absolutely swimming in it. In spite of both of those things, Eddie was in better spirits than Stan had maybe ever seen him, to the point where Stan was almost afraid that Eddie was going to hug him when he got close enough.

 

“Eddie,” Stan greeted, raising a hand slowly to wave cordially at their two friends as Mike slowly shifted his attention away from the cupcake selection. “Richie.”

 

“Stanakin Skywalker,” Richie grinned, coming up behind Eddie and sliding a hand easily onto Eddie’s shoulder, “here with Pad-Mike Amidala.”

 

Stan stared at him, wondering vaguely if he’d actually forgotten that Stan had zero knowledge of the Star Wars films. “Who?”

 

“Never mind.” Richie waved a conceding hand. The motion of his wave drew Stan’s eyes to his shirt, which was the most hideous brown monstrosity Stan had maybe ever seen (modeled after that creature that was always with Han Solo whose name Stan always forgot), and he wondered: had he actually missed Richie Tozier, or had his mind just gone soft and nostalgic from being alone in the apartment?

 

“How’d you find us, Eddie?” Mike asked, smiling warily down at the top of Eddie’s head. “I didn’t text you that we were getting food, did I?”

 

Eddie shrugged. “Had a hunch. Richie saw one of those blue drinks and thought that Stan would like that, and I know you can get those here, so.”

 

Stan looked at Richie, who was smiling at his giant, converse-clad feet, and felt a little bit sad all over again. His empty apartment nostalgia brain had nothing to do with how big of a hole Richie’s semi-departure had actually left in his life.

 

But again - that was a problem for Later Stan.

 

“Come on, Rich,” Stan said, moving towards the doors of the Starring Rolls Cafe and beckoning to his friend. “I’ll buy you a cupcake.”

 

Richie’s resulting smile was enough to make Stan consider skipping the fireworks show - it was that much of a spectacle. “He does care!”

 

“I always have, dipshit,” Stan muttered, walking pointedly away from Richie and into the air-conditioned cafe. Immediately, he let out a sigh of relief - the Florida heat fucking sucked, and he could practically feel his hair going nuts with it at this point in the day. Behind him, he heard Richie following along and chattering enthusiastically, but he tuned that out in favor of locating the blue drink he wanted on the menu. Once he found it, he couldn’t help but scowl...there was no way he was going to be able to pronounce the name of that cocktail well enough to order it. Reluctantly, he turned back to Mike.

 

“Hey sweetheart,” he began slowly, “the blue drink....”

 

Mike glanced at the menu, and then he threw his head back and let out a long laugh. Embarrassed, Stan tightened his shoulders and turned around.

 

“Never mind, I don’t--”

 

“Alderaan,” Mike said, still wheezing with laughter. “It’s pronounced All - deh - rahn...although if you want to pay homage to that meme you like about the high ground, you should get the red Mustafar thing--”

 

Stan considered that. On the one hand, he was mortified enough at this point to be seriously considering just skipping the drink altogether, but on the other...he did love that meme...

 

“Richie?” He glanced off to the right, scanning the room for Richie, who had become suspiciously quiet since they’d entered the bakery. “Tell me what you want so I can ge--”

 

The sentence dried up in Stan’s mouth as he locked eyes with one Bill Denbrough, who was standing next to a sheepish looking Richie. Stan vaguely registered the presence of Eddie, Beverly, and Ben behind Bill, but it didn’t matter that they were there, not really.

 

Well, it did, kind of. He tore his eyes from Bill and quickly scanned each of their faces - Richie looked uncomfortable, Eddie looked kind of sick, Ben looked embarrassed, and Bev...Bev looked…

 

Stan turned back to the left to glance at Mike, and when Mike met his gaze, a small nod confirmed Stan’s suspicions: this was Beverly Marsh’s doing, most definitely.

 

Bill himself looked more gaunt than Stan remembered - as if someone had taken the face that Stan remembered and stretched it thinner, made it longer, made it _sadder_ , almost. His blue eyes stood in stark contrast to the circles around them, and they looked _scared._

 

Bizarrely, that detail was almost comforting to Stan. It was good that Bill was a little frightened. That was better than Bill being indignant, or having that Denbrough fiery conviction in his eyes. No...frightened, Stan could work with. It gave him leverage, at the very least.

 

Mike would feel bad about it, though - and Stan could see him already starting to feel bad about it, guilt was creeping across his face and sinking his shoulders. Damn it.

 

Bill spoke first. “You didn’t t-tell me they were going to be here, Bev.”

 

Oh. That was new. Stan knew that Bill had stuttered in his youth, but he hadn’t ever actually heard him do it. Was it a ploy, or was it legitimate? Was it shitty of Stan to even be thinking that question?

 

“You guys were never going to get here on your own,” Bev said cooly, and Stan felt a little spike of anger at her - who was she to dictate the terms of this revisitation? They weren’t ready. None of them were ready, and Hollywood Studios was the wrong venue for any kind of confrontation.

 

Before he could collect his thoughts well enough to voice his displeasure, though, Eddie was speaking. “Should we go, then?” he asked, twisting the hem of his shirt in his hands nervously. “We could get in line for Star Tours, maybe? Or the Luke Skywalker meet-and-greet?”

 

“Do you know the names of any Star Wars characters that aren’t Luke Skywalker?” Richie asked fondly, re-situating his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie leaned into the touch, smiling quietly to himself.

 

“I like Luke Skywalker.” Eddie defended himself without any real heat, sliding a hand up to cover Richie’s. “He’s gay.”

 

Ben half-covered his face with his hand. “Oh, Eddie…”

 

“We’ll go,” Bev decided loudly, grabbing for Ben’s hand and leading him towards the door. “Text me when you’re ready to join us, boys. We’ll be in line for something or other, probably.”

 

Bev, Ben, Richie, and Eddie swept out of the restaurant together, and all of Stan’s angry words were left to fester as the four of them disappeared into the crowd, chattering about the merits of meeting Princess Leia (Bev’s choice) versus meeting Luke Skywalker (Eddie’s choice).

 

For the first time since February, Stan, Mike, and Bill were alone together. It was almost funny that they were reconciling in a restaurant, Stan thought, except that it was really not funny at all. None of them had moved, so they weren’t even set up to have a private conversation - they were stuck just staring at each other across the bakery as patrons entered and exited.

 

After a long thirty seconds, Mike strode forward, and gestured to Stan to follow him. Stan clenched his fists and entertained the idea of resisting - he didn’t want either of them to be drawn back into the vortex they’d been in before, the last two months had been so _good_ \- but in the end, he followed, because this wasn’t about going back, not really. It was about moving forward.

 

How have you been, Bill?” Mike asked softly, offering out a hand for Bill to shake.

 

Bill stared at Mike’s hand as if it were going to bite him, but Mike held firm, and after an excruciating moment, Bill relented. Stan was surprised at how visibly Bill relaxed when his brain finally processed that Mike and Stan weren’t going to be hostile. He deflated like a balloon, sagging his shoulders and sliding his hand into Mike’s.

 

“Okay,” Bill said, and Stan could almost feel the way his face immediately synched up with Mike’s as they raised their eyebrows at Bill skeptically. Bill stared at them for a second, and then choked out a laugh, eyes widening incredulously. “Okay, not great, not really even okay, actually. Holy shit, you guys.”

 

“Sorry,” Mike said, at the same time that Stan said, “Now THIS is podracing,” and Bill let out another hoarse laugh.

 

“Is that a meme?” he asked, smiling up at Stan, and Stan felt his stomach clench upon seeing the little crinkly smile lines around Bill’s eyes. How fucking odd, to remember the things that you were attracted to in a person without experiencing the actual attraction.

 

“Yes,” Stan said, and found that his voice wasn’t nearly as sharp as he’d anticipated it being. “Of course it’s a meme. You know me.”

 

Bill looked like he had something to say on that point, but to Stan’s great surprise, he kept it to himself.

 

“Guest Relations still going okay? I never see you in the tunnels,” Mike continued, already grasping for straws as far as small talk topics were concerned. The conversation was going to have to get serious soon - Stan wasn’t sure why Mike was delaying the inevitable.

 

“It’s fine,” Bill shrugged. “Kind of boring. I see Richie and Eddie sometimes, but mostly it’s just the usual sitting at the window and fielding complaints. How’s Splash? And Yacht?”

 

“Splash is great, actually,” Mike said, smiling slowly. “I’m glad I transferred there. I’m having a lot of fun.”

 

If Bill was upset about that, he was doing a good job of not showing it. “I’m glad. And you, Stan?”

 

Stan nodded, trying to be as agreeable as possible. “We’ve got wings closed for renovation, so it’s pretty quiet. Once we’re full steam ahead again, though, I’m going to put in for Manager.”

 

Bill swung his eyes over to meet Stan’s, and Stan was surprised by how open his expression was. “Good. Sounds like you’re both doing well.”

 

Mike and Stan exchanged a nervous glance. “We’re fine, yeah.”

 

There was an awkward silence, exacerbated by Bill turning away for a few seconds to look at the cupcake case. Once he turned back, Mike spoke again.

 

“I’m sorry for what happened in February,” he said, and Stan straightened up. Finally, finally, finally they had reached the meat of the conversation - and the sooner they got through it, the sooner this terrible interaction would be finished. “I know I wasn’t fair.”

 

Mike turned his head after he was finished speaking and fixed Stan with a look that indicated that he expected Stan to apologize too...but Stan wasn’t quite there yet.

 

“Have you thought about what we said?” he asked instead, and he felt rather than saw Mike’s cringe.

 

Bill didn’t seem upset, though. In fact, he looked as though he had expected that line of questioning. “If I said yes, Stan, would you believe me?”

 

Stan didn’t really know what his answer to that question was. Fortunately, Mike was able to make a quicker judgement call.

 

“I would,” said Mike. “February Bill would have been pretty mad that we were doing well without him, I think, and you seem….you seem calm, Bill. Have you been talking to someone?”

 

“Just Bev,” he said, cutting eye contact with both of them and looking at the ground sheepishly. “We still live together for the moment, but I think she’s looking at moving in with Ben? Is that true?” He looked specifically at Mike for that question, and Mike nodded carefully.

 

“I think so? I’m pretty evenly split between my place and Stan’s, so I don’t know for sure,” he said, and Stan’s eyes snapped back to Bill’s face, trying to gauge his reaction about Stan and Mike spending time together. To his credit, he didn’t seem fazed at all.

 

Fuck. Maybe things _had_ changed over the past few months. Maybe Bill was trying to self-improve after all.

 

“But I’m thinking about seeing a therapist,” Bill continued, shuffling his feet a little bit, “just to like, talk to someone, you know? And I’ve been thinking about what you guys were saying about the not listening, because...well, Bev said it too, and I’m not...I’m working on it.”

 

Mike smiled sweetly. “I can tell.”

 

“Me too,” Stan admitted, and Bill’s eyes snapped up at that. He had obviously not expected Stan to be kind.

 

“I have a question, though,” Bill asked, in a tone that quietly indicated that he only half-wanted to ask his question.

 

“Shoot,” Mike and Stan said in unison, and Bill shuddered.

 

“Fucking weird, you guys. Anyways,” he said, taking his time as if trying to word it perfectly in his head. “I just...what happened? Why me? I know that’s probably like...ignorant or something? Maybe? I don’t know, but...I deserve to know that, I think.”

 

Stan smiled thinly. The old Bill - the “deserve” Bill - was not quite dead, after all.

 

Mike, as always, was kinder than Stan, and launched quickly into an explanation.

 

“Well, the minority versus non-minority thing was bigger than you thought it was, I think,” Mike said thoughtfully, and Stan nodded.

 

“Yeah, ditto that. There are some things you just can’t understand unless you’ve lived them.”

 

Bill frowned and shoved his hands into his pockets. “But Stan’s white.”

 

Stan exhaled lowly. “Yeah, and that’s not the same as Mike and all the shit he deals with, I know...but the Jewishness, Bill. It’s a thing, even if I haven’t really practiced in a minute...it’s a thing.”

 

Sighing, Bill inelegantly pushed a hand back through his hair. “Okay, I guess. Was that it?”

 

Stan looked at Mike, and Mike nodded back at him, giving him the non-verbal green light.

 

“The dynamic was weird,” Stan said, willing Bill to look him in the eyes for this part. It wasn’t happening, but it felt like it was important to try, so Stan persisted. “You like to be in charge, and the two of us aren’t really people that like having people in charge of us.”

 

“Yeah,” Mike agreed. “We’re not Richie and Eddie, Bill - heck, we’re not even Ben and Bev. We’ve got a whole different thing going on, you know?”

 

Bill’s eyes were all but glued to the floor. “That makes sense, I guess.”

 

“You don’t like it,” Mike said flatly, and Bill hesitated for a moment before nodding.

 

“I don’t,” Bill agreed. “But. It helps to know.”

 

“We should have explained it better,” Mike said, and Stan nodded shortly - almost indecipherably, because part of him was still resistant to apologizing, but he nodded all the same. “It’s just so fucking frustrating in the moment, you know?”

 

Bill barked out a laugh. “Yeah, I definitely know.”

 

Another silence fell upon them, but it was more comfortable now. Stan could practically see the other side of the conversation, and he was desperate to get there. The staff was starting to be weirded out by their continued presence.

 

“Are we going to be okay, then?” he asked, trying to drive the other two to a more practical place.

 

They both looked up at him with matching fond smiles, and he felt heat curl in his gut. Fuck, that was...something else.

 

“I don’t know about hanging today, if I’m honest,” Mike said, more blunt than usual (and Stan knew that was for his sake), “but we could try another day and see? That’ll give us time to prepare.”

 

Bill nodded thoughtfully. “Time to prepare sounds good. Bev really threw us under the bus today, huh.”

 

“She really fucking did,” Stan agreed sourly. “Which day?”

 

“I’m pretty tied up this month,” Bill admitted, “but maybe beginning of June? Do you guys have Universal Studios Season Passes? I haven’t been on Kong yet.”

 

“Sounds like a plan,” Mike smiled. “Cool. You staying for the rest of this Star Wars crazy, Bill?”

 

“Nah,” Bill said, waving a hand dismissively across his face. “I’m more of a Star Trek guy. Bev knows that, so I was a little confused about why she asked me to come today...I guess I know now. Anyways. I’ll probably go home and watch reruns of Arrested Development.”

 

Stan nodded, feeling light. “Well, godspeed, then.”

 

Bill looked between the two of them, looking half pleased and half exasperated. “God, Stan, you’re so--”

 

“I know,” Stan said, reaching for Mike’s hand. To his great relief, Mike took it immediately. “I know.”

 

There was still more to say - the air was thick with conversation they weren’t having, but it was time for Bill to go, and he knew it.

 

“Goodbye, then,” he finally said, backing towards the doors of the restaurant.

 

“Goodbye,” Mike and Stan chorused, waving him away until he pushed his way out and back into the Florida sun.

 

They stood there like that for a moment, hands clasped, and then looked back at each other.

 

“How do you say the name of that drink again?” Stan finally asked, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

 

Mike opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, someone tapped Stan on the shoulder.

 

It was one of the Starring Rolls employees, holding his blue, blue drink.

 

“Couldn’t help but overhear,” she said quickly as Stan read her nametag (‘ _Patricia’_ , and she looked like one, too, all dark curls and dimples). “This is on the house. Sorry about your friend.”

 

Stan blinked back at her, too surprised to speak, and Mike clapped a hand on his shoulder, laughing softly.

 

“In another life, he’d be considering asking you to marry him right about now,” Mike informed the girl, who laughed in response.

 

“Sounds like it would be nice,” she said, beaming at the two of them. “Alternate universe Patty Blum is pretty lucky. But for now, enjoy, okay? May the fourth be with you.”

 

“Thank you,” Stan said, thirty seconds too late - she was already headed back to her post.

 

“Pull yourself together, sweetheart,” Mike chided jokingly, holding up his phone, which was lit up with new text notifications. “Bev’s wondering where we are. You up for doing more shit? I know that was a lot to handle.”

 

Stan looked down at his drink, and then up at Mike, and felt his face split into a huge, crazy grin.

 

“That’s...why I’m here.”

 

Mike’s responding groan propelled them out of Starring Rolls and all the way back to where Bev, Ben, Richie, and Eddie were waiting for them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disney folks I KNOW you can't get specialty drinks at Starring Rolls but I'm too lazy to make them go to a kiosk, okay?  
> also I haven't been to SWW in a minute. they probably have different food now, but all the Disney Food Blog entries I looked at were back from like 2015 so I'm operating under the assumption that the novelty shit doesn't change.
> 
> meme references:
> 
> High Ground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H3o8r7JgGY  
> Now THIS is Podracing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bLkcCZFKvA  
> That's....why I'm here....: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Djzfs_emGY
> 
> I wanted to fit in a nice Obi Wan "Hello there" but it just didn't work out.
> 
> Tell me your fave prequel meme in the comments or at skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com <3


	13. "Reflection" (Ben)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What could he do to help any of this, really? His friends were counting on him to mediate, but how the hell was a person supposed to mediate when all of them had agendas he didn’t understand and he couldn’t even keep himself together enough to have a sip of a goddamn Butterbeer?"

**BEN HANSCOM**

**IMAGINEER**

**Currently in**

**UNIVERSAL STUDIOS: ISLANDS OF ADVENTURE**

**JUNE 15th**

**12 P.M.**

 

Universal Studios didn’t make any fucking sense to Ben Hanscom.

 

He knew a lot of people liked it better than Disney, and that those people generally had valid reasons. They were right to say that there were more thrill rides at Universal. There were certainly more motion simulators - and good quality simulators, too. Ben was particularly fond of the Spiderman ride, to the point where it had been a major inspiration for some of the Star Wars projects he’d pitched over the course of the last year.

 

They were also right to point out that the Harry Potter sections of the park were well done. After the construction of Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 1998 and the subsequent fallout around how the company handled the opening of that park, a lot of Imagineers jumped ship to Universal, and their influence was obvious in the narrow, winding paths of Hogsmeade Village that Ben and his friends were currently meandering down. It was all true to the story of Harry Potter in a way that was impressively theme-park functional, right down to the frozen Butterbeer that Ben currently had clutched in his hand.

 

The rest of the park, though...well, to say he didn’t care for it would be an understatement. It was confusingly set up, and more importantly, it was, in his opinion, kind of lifeless. Disney worked so hard to make sure that every detail of every square inch of their parks were perfect - there were Rapunzel designs INSIDE of the toilets in Fantasyland, for goodness sakes - so to see so much bare concrete and thoughtless palm tree decor at Universal was a little disappointing.

 

He kind of wanted to share that observation with his friends to see if they agreed, but initiating conversation with them with proving to be...difficult.

 

The primary issue as far as that was concerned was that he was Bev-less. They were all supposed to be on this outing, and as of two days ago, they had all solidified their days off and had been set and ready to go...but then Bev had been late to work and gotten a point on her record, and none of them had wanted her to risk getting fired by taking a personal day after that.

 

He loved his friends, but it was easier to be in a group when you had a point person with whom to interact if things got cliquey, and Bev was definitely his point person.

 

Mike was usually his second choice of people to turn to when he was feeling socially awkward, but Mike had his own issues to focus on today. It was the first time since February that they had invited Bill to hang out with them as a full group (Ben, Bev, Richie and Eddie had spent time with him separately, but having him together with Mike and Stan was uncharted territory) and making sure that things remained tension-free was proving to be a little bit exhausting. The energy of the group wasn’t bad at the moment, per-se, but it was also obvious that there were a lot of things left to be discussed between Mike, Stan, and Bill, and none of them wanted to be the first to bring up anything difficult. As it was, they were trying their best to stick to neutral topics, which currently meant that they were deep into an assessment of which of them belonged in which Hogwarts house.

 

“I thought I was a Hufflepuff,” Eddie was saying, wrinkling his nose in confusion. He and Ben were the only ones without Harry Potter apparel on: Eddie was wearing a Spiderman baseball shirt, and Ben had chosen his trusty Dr. Strange tee, but it was obvious that of the two of them, Ben had more Harry Potter expertise. Eddie’s knowledge of the Potter series was like his knowledge of Star Wars, which was to say: spotty at best.  “They’re the ones that are just kinda nice, right? Like, just kind of there? I don’t know as much as you guys. My mom wouldn’t let me read the books when I was younger, and I’ve only seen the movies on TV.”

 

Richie looked down at him thoughtfully, adjusting the arm that he had slung over Eddie’s shoulder. “I mean, you’re sweet and loyal and stuff, but I also think you’re pretty brave, Eds. You might just be a Gryffindor.”

 

Eddie still looked perturbed, so Ben helpfully volunteered, “That’s the one Harry Potter was in, Eddie.”

 

“Oh.” A pleased flush spread across Eddie’s cheeks. “That’s good, right? I don’t know. though...that sounds like more of a Bill thing than a me thing, I think. Harry Potter’s REALLY brave.”

 

Ben watched nervously as Stan and Mike looked quickly at one another, and then carefully over at Bill. Ben’s drink shook in his hand, and a little bit spilled on the ground, but it was probably for the best. It was starting to melt, anyway.

 

“I think that fits,” Mike said slowly. “Bill, what do you think? Gryffindor?”

 

Bill shrugged, but his smile betrayed an amount of relief. “Sure. That’s where Pottermore usually sorts me...that or Slytherin. I guess it thinks I’m polarizing.”

 

There was clearly more that Stan wanted to say on that point, but to everyone’s relief, he kept his mouth shut.

 

Eddie looked overwhelmed by all of the information he was receiving. “What’s Pottermore?”

 

“Harry Potter online...thing, I don’t know what the fuck it actually is,” Richie tried to explain. Ben almost wanted to cut him off and take over the explanation himself so as not to give Eddie a brain aneurysm, but Richie seemed pretty committed to saying his piece, so Ben backed off. “There’s a sorting quiz on there that the author of the books designed herself. It’s like...the Big Deal quiz.”

 

“Oh, okay.” Eddie tugged on Richie’s sleeve to pull him towards a shop that appeared to sell a variety of stuffed owls, and mechanically, the rest of them followed suit. “Where did it sort you?”

 

“Ravenclaw,” Richie said, beaming amusedly. “Fucking hilarious, I think.”

 

“That’s the smart house, Eddie,” Stan said before Eddie had the chance to ask, “and it _ is  _ fucking hilarious, definitely, given that he hasn’t even had enough forethought to let me know that he’s moved out.”

 

Richie stopped dead in his tracks in front of the plexiglass shop window, and the rest of them congregated around him, shuffling wearily into a circle. They’d all known that eventually, someone was going to break and lead them into conversations that none of them really wanted to have, and the resignation on every single one of their faces was proof that each and every one of them had been quietly waiting for this moment since they’d piled into Ben’s car that morning.

 

Ben bit his bottom lip anxiously and tried to ignore the way his butterbeer was melting down the sides of the cup it came in. He shouldn’t have bought the damn drink. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to muster up the nerve to drink it. Liquid calories were so fucking difficult…

 

“I’m surprised, Stan,” Richie said, knocking Ben out of his spiral. “I thought you’d go after Bill first.”

 

Mike frowned and opened his mouth to begin telling Richie off, but Stan put a hand on Mike’s shoulder to quiet him and shook his head - once, twice, three times.

 

“That’s not fair, Richie,” Stan said, voice surprisingly neutral. “It doesn’t matter that you’re constantly balls-deep in emotional denial. You’re not the only person here, and some of us want to address the bad shit so we can move on.”

 

Richie scoffed. “You can’t accuse me of that stuff, Stan...not when you do the same thing. You know I could be really mean about this and bring up a bunch of examples, right?”

 

“Yeah, yeah. We’ve had this argument a thousand times, Rich, I know…just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean you can treat it like it doesn’t exist’.” Stan ran an agitated hand through his hair. “But I don’t like that you’re never in the apartment anymore and I really can’t pretend that that’s not happening, so.”

 

Eddie spoke up next. His voice was timid. “I’m sorry about that, Stan. We would have been over more often, but I thought you might not like to have us in your space all the time…”

 

“I appreciate the apology, Eddie, but it’s not even really about the space,” Stan said, eyes locked on Richie. “I mean, Richie and I haven’t even been talking. I had to find out that he was thinking about quitting the company from Beverly. Quitting the company! That’s fucking huge! And I understand that we’re all friends here, but...but...I knew you first, Richie.” Stan crossed his arms, embarrassed. “I knew you first. Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

The silence after that was thick, to the point where even the crowds of tourists around them seemed inconsequential. Stan’s statement had obviously affected Richie, but the amount of panic apparent in the way Richie was wringing his hands was too great to have been brought about by Stan alone…

 

The realization that Richie hadn’t told  _ Eddie _ about quitting the company either seemed to dawn upon all of them at once. With a sharp collective intake of breath, they all swung their heads towards Eddie, who looked like he was one angry word away from bursting into tears.

 

Ben tightened his grip on his Butterbeer, and some more of it splashed out and on to the ground. He couldn’t bring himself to care - no, he was far too busy trying to frantically brainstorm ways of de-escalating the situation in front of him. That was what he was good at; that was what he could bring to the table here - and he suspected it was also a pretty big part of why they’d insisted that he still come after Bev had backed out. They needed him for this exact moment.

 

If only he had any idea what the fuck he was doing.

 

“Richie…?” Eddie managed to ask softly, voice squeaky with the effort of not breaking. It was obvious that he was sending up a plea:  _ please be lying, please be joking, please don’t tell me you’ve actually been keeping this huge thing from me _ .

 

Richie had his eyes screwed shut, and his face had paled significantly, which was a real feat considering how pale he was in the first place.

 

“Okay, I promise you, Eddie, I was going to tell you--”

 

“More excuses, Richie?” Ben was startled by the sudden anger in Eddie’s voice. It seemed that he was pushing aside his feelings of grief and helplessness in favor of lashing out. “More excuses?! You always have an excuse for not telling me stuff! You’re too busy? Too nervous? What the fuck, Richie! Why should any of that stuff get in the way? I’m your boyfriend! You should feel comfortable telling me anything! What the fuck is wrong with me, huh?”

 

Richie gaped. “Wrong with  _ you _ ?”

 

“Something must be!” Eddie had wound himself into near hysterics already. Beside him, Ben felt Mike tense up, as if he were readying himself to leap into action, and Ben wondered crazily if Mike would actually pick Eddie up and carry him out somewhere if his current meltdown got any more intense. As it was, the people around them were starting to stare. “Something must be wrong with me, Richie, because you don’t trust me!’

 

“There you go, Richie,” Stan agreed. “That’s how you make people feel when you pull shit like this. I told you it wasn’t just me.”

 

Mike held up a finger. “Hold on, honey. You and Eddie aren’t dissimilar when it comes to expectations for communication. Maybe Richie--”

 

“I’m good, Mike, you don’t have to defend me on this,” Richie insisted.

 

“Then defend yourself!” Eddie screeched, fists clenched at your side. “Explain!”

 

The argument continued for five minutes, and then ten, and then it had been almost twenty minutes, and at that point Ben began to realize that the storm he was trying to weather was showing no signs of stopping. The massive, multi-faceted disaster that Stan had pushed them into had obviously been coming on for quite some time now, and as hurricanes went it was a Category 5. 

 

Wordlessly, he stepped away from the circle to throw away his Butterbeer. It didn’t seem worth it (and he knew that was dangerous behavior, he KNEW it, but he was losing his mind and the Butterbeer wasn’t helping). 

 

What could he do to help any of this, really? His friends were counting on him to mediate, but how the hell was a person supposed to mediate when all of them had agendas he didn’t understand and he couldn’t even keep himself together enough to have a sip of a goddamn Butterbeer?

 

“Guys--” he tried, not knowing where he was going with the sentence but throwing it out there anyways, “guys….”

 

They weren’t listening, and Ben almost couldn’t blame them. Mike was in the middle of trying to calm down a wheezing Eddie, and Richie was trying to both get to Eddie and fend off Stan at the same time. As for Bill…

 

...huh. Bill, who had been surprisingly silent through all the fighting, was making his way into the epicenter of the action. He came up behind Eddie and put a hand on his shoulder, and Eddie abruptly stopped crying out of surprise.

 

“B-Bill?” Eddie asked, voice cracked and hiccupy.

 

“Enough now, Eddie,” Bill said, tightening his grip a little bit on Eddie’s shoulder. A hush had fallen over the group, and Ben was surprised to see Bill roll his shoulders back as if filling in all the empty, silent space he’d been left.

 

Beverly’s voice lit in the back of Ben’s mind.  _ It’s destiny, Ben. The seven of us. It’s fate. _

 

He kind of wished Bev was here to see this. The Bill that she so often spoke of - the collected leader that Ben had wished would emerge earlier - was finally making an appearance, it seemed.

 

“Bill,” Eddie tried again, more coherently this time, but Bill wasn’t finished.

 

“Be careful what you wish for,” Bill said, turning slowly to look at each of them individually, “right?”

 

Nobody met Bill’s gaze. Instead, they all looked around at each other in confusion - no one was really sure what Bill was trying to say.

 

Stan’s impatience ultimately broke the silence. “Get to the point, Denbrough.”

 

“It’s been a weird couple of months for me,” Bill continued, nodding at Stan in acknowledgement. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about all of this - all of us.”

 

“Please don’t give us a ‘ _ this is what you all should be doing right now _ ’ talk,” Mike said quietly, looking at the ground and the people passing by and really everywhere but at Bill. “We’re past that point.”

 

The Bill that Ben had known five months ago would have fired off a hasty response to Mike’s underhanded accusation, but Ben was impressed to see that Bill had apparently grown enough to rein himself in. He put his head down, processed, and then looked back at Mike neutrally.

 

“I’m not going to. You’re right. This isn’t about ‘should’ or ‘should have’, or anything in the past. It’s about figuring out what to do next.”

 

He looked down at the top of Eddie’s head, and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. Eddie turned around hesitantly, and shot Ben a quick, pleading look that Ben didn’t really understand before turning his eyes up to Bill.

 

“Why did you want to be with Richie in the first place, Eddie?” Bill asked, and Eddie inhaled sharply. Richie’s face began to contort up into a grimace - he was obviously bracing himself for the worst. In the background, a show was starting up on the small Hogsmeade stage, and the music from it was providing a peppy soundtrack to their otherwise somber conversation.

 

“Um,” Eddie said, and looked over at Richie’s legs. “Do we...do we really have to have a group therapy session while the Beauxbatons Girls are singing in the background…”

 

“We’re apparently incapable of doing any emotional work in private,” Bill said flatly, “so unless you want to go back to your argument--”

 

“He was nice,” Eddie said quickly. His breaths were coming fast and shallow, now, and his hand ghosted down to his pocket as if there was something there that could help him. “He takes care of people. He was funny. He made me feel special.”

 

Judging by the delighted surprise in Richie’s expression, that was not the answer that he had been expecting. He took a tentative step forward, and Eddie’s eyes snapped up to his face.

 

“And when you found out about how much of a disaster he can be sometimes,” Bill continued, “did any of that change how you felt about him? Were you just clinging on to the person you thought you wanted, or what?”

 

Stan’s eyes narrowed and he stepped up next to Richie with a tight frown plastered firmly on his face. He was ready to fight...and Bill should have seen that coming, Ben figured, given Stan’s penchant towards attacking anyone that was cruel to Richie. He was probably beating himself up on the inside for his earlier comments, too - that was how dedicated he was to that particular friendship.

 

Richie didn’t seem angry about Bill’s words, though. His eyes were locked on Eddie, and his concentration was unwavering. It felt like he was treating Eddie’s response like a jury verdict.

 

Eddie deflated a little bit under everyone’s gaze. 

 

“No,” he finally said, “I like the disaster parts, too.”

 

Richie exhaled loudly in relief, and Bill nodded knowingly. “So you got what you wished for, avoidance tendencies and all.”

 

“I guess I did,” Eddie said softly. He still couldn’t bring himself to meet Richie’s gaze.

 

“And you,” Bill said, turning to Richie. “You wanted Eddie so bad. You thought he was going to make you happy again.”

 

“Bill, you’re referencing a private conversation--” Stan cut in angrily.

 

“If it helps, it helps, Stan,” Bill said, crossing his arms. “And none of us really have secrets from each other any more. Now. Richie - you stayed even though Eddie wasn’t a magic cure-all. Why?”

 

Richie responded almost too quickly, as if he’d been turning it around in his brain for so long that it was ready to pop out at a moment’s notice. “Because why would I want a cure-all when I could have the real Eddie Kaspbrak instead?”

 

That was enough to get Eddie to look up. As soon as they made eye contact, it felt like some kind of spell had broken - one of the corners of Richie’s mouth turned up, and Eddie clasped his hands sweetly in front of his stomach.

 

“So...why don’t you tell me things, then?” Eddie asked carefully. “Why secrets?”

 

This time, it was Richie who couldn’t make eye contact. He jerked his head off to the side, electing to stare at the side of Mike’s head instead of engage fully with the situation.

 

“I don’t want you to go,” Richie said in a low, private voice. “I’m scared you’ll, um….I’m scared you’ll leave if you find out that I’m doing outside stuff, you know, like...non-Disney stuff. I know that’s something you’re nervous about, and I….I can take care of myself, if you don’t want to be with me anymore. I don’t want you to worry about that. I just…” 

 

Eddie stepped forward and reached up to slide his hands around Richie’s jaw. Slowly and deliberately, he brought Richie’s face around so that they were making eye contact again.

 

“Richie,” Eddie said, and Ben wasn’t sure if it was a question or an assurance.

 

“I like you so goddamn much, okay?” Richie mumbled, screwing up his face as the words left his mouth. “I just want to have as much time with you as I can.” He leaned back a little bit, just enough to gently ease himself out of Eddie’s grip. When he spoke again, it was loud, and addressed to everyone. “Fuck all of you for making me admit that out loud, by the way.”

 

Mike let out a relieved bark of a laugh, and Stan groaned, burying his face in his hands. Ben stared at Bill in wonder - by some miracle, he’d just cut the group tension in half, and all he’d done was ask a couple of bizarre questions.

 

Well, he’d mostly dissipated the tension, anyway. Richie apparently wasn’t finished.

 

“So,” Richie said, crossing his arms and looking down at Eddie. Ben could see his knuckles turning white from where his hands were gripping his arms, and felt a pang of sadness for his friend - this was obviously not easy for him. “Do you want….are you going to break up with me?”

 

Eddie’s expression shifted rapidly from confusion to horror to embarrassment, and as such it took him a moment to respond. The extra couple of seconds of silence were obviously agonizing for Richie, who was rocking back and forth on his heels with a sort of possessed intensity.

 

“Of course I’m not going to break up with you, dumbass,” Eddie finally managed to choke out. “I can’t believe… _.no. _ It scares me that you might not be at Disney, I won’t lie about that, but I’m not…. _ Richie _ .”

 

Richie unclenched his hands from around his arms as Eddie reached up, and they found each other somewhere in the middle. Eddie grabbed his collar and pulled him down, and Richie slid his hands over and on to Eddie’s upper arms.

 

“Oh,” Richie said, staring down at Eddie in disbelief and wonder. “Oh.”

 

“Just kiss and make up already if you’re not breaking up,” Stan interjected, raising a hand to hs face in an effort to pretend he wasn’t smiling, “for fuck’s sake, you idiots.”

 

Eddie looked seriously back at Richie.”You had turkey leg for lunch, right?”

 

“Yes,” Richie said blankly.

 

“Then we save the kiss for later.” Eddie stepped back, smiling wanly up at Richie and then around at his friends. “When your mouth’s not gross.”

 

Richie blinked, nodded, smiled, and then began to laugh - stiltedly at first, and then sort of normally, and then somehow, he was in hysterics. The fact that Eddie wasn’t actually leaving seemed to be belatedly catching up to him. “That’s...oh my God, that’s….oh, fuck, Eds, I’m...you….come here!”

 

Before Eddie could protest, Richie had swooped him up in his arms and was kissing him soundly. A couple of passerby cheered, and Richie held up a peace sign to them without ever detaching himself from Eddie’s mouth.

 

Eddie pushed away, spluttering, but he was smiling in spite of himself. “Okay, okay, jeez. We’re good now, right? Thanks, Bill.”

 

Bill smiled and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jean shorts. “It was all you, Eddie.”

 

Richie made to say something in response to that, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Stan had been tapping his foot restlessly behind Richie and Eddie for the past minute or so, and now it looked like he’d finally pieced together what he wanted to say.

 

“I’m sorry too, Richie,” he said, making sure to hold eye contact with him so as to properly convey his sincerity. (Stan was very good at eye contact, Ben had realized - to the point where it was sometimes unnerving.) “I was jealous and stressed out, and I was wrong to call you out like I did. It’s okay that you’re moving out, and um. In fact. I’d, uh...I’d like to talk to you about maybe making that official? I’m not kicking you out, I just--”

 

Mike came up behind Stan to smile sheepishly at Richie from over Stan’s shoulder. “I was thinking that maybe I could move in instead, if you’re not going to be at home? I mean, if you and Eddie...I don’t know what the deal is, really--”

 

Richie shrugged exaggeratedly and looked over at Eddie, who rolled his eyes.

 

“You live with me, Richie. You haven’t been back to your other place in months. Might as well get your name on some of my paperwork so you can start pulling your weight in this relationship.”

 

Richie let out a short laugh and clapped Stan on the shoulder. “All right then, Stan my Man, apparently I live with Eddie now. I’m sorry, too, though. I miss you,  _ mi amor _ .” He leaned in next to Stan’s ear to whisper the last part, and Stan beamed at him as he shoved him backwards into the nearest trash can.

 

Ben noticed with a jolt that Mike’s eyes were on him. He stared back, wondering what on Earth Mike was staring for...until he realized that Mike’s moving out meant that he would be alone.

 

‘ _ You okay? _ ” Mike mouthed, and Ben found that he didn’t really know the answer to that question.

 

He knew what it was like to be alone. He’d done it before...but after all of this, after having these wonderful friends for the better part of the last year - could he do it again?

 

Before he was finished processing, though, Stan was speaking again. “And I think...I think I’ve been wrong about a couple of different things, lately.”

 

Ben knew that Stan was going to turn towards Bill after saying that - they all knew it, really, but Bill still seemed taken aback. He stared openly at Stan, half-curious and half-afraid, and did not respond.

 

A rare burst of confidence lit in Ben’s chest. When everyone had been screaming about their own issues, it had been too overwhelming for him to untangle, but now that there was one specific problem to solve, Ben knew that he was the man to do it - especially now that Bill had a personal stake in what was going on. They needed an outside party.

 

(It was damn nice to feel needed - and that was part of the problem, part of what he was going to have to talk to Mike about later, but now it was time to focus.)

 

“You guys,” Ben said, and everyone turned towards him in surprise.

 

“Jesus, Haystack,” Richie said slowly, “you were so busy minding your own business over there, I almost forgot you were suffering through this with us.”

 

“Beep beep for a minute, Richie,” Ben said kindly, “this isn’t about you.”

 

Eddie cackled at that, and Richie sighed, pushing a hand back through his hair. “If you weren’t so damn nice…”

 

Ben ignored that in favor of turning back towards Stan, Mike, and Bill. “Guys, this is a ‘ _ be careful what you wish for’ _ kind of thing too. I think.”

 

Stan nodded, seemingly relieved to have a direction for the conversation to follow that wasn’t just him having to apologize to Bill. “I mean, sure. I entered this relationship back in the fall hoping that it would be one in which both of you understood me perfectly, and when you didn’t, Bill--”

 

“Oh.” Bill looked contemplative. “Huh.”

 

Stan nodded. “Richie and Eddie had a kind of desperate desire to be together - no offense, nerds, but you did - and I...didn’t have that kind of need, I think.”

 

“Me either,” Mike agreed. “I wanted the same thing, Stan. And some friends, but that was a whole separate deal.”

 

“Did you have a desperate desire for me, Rich?” Ben heard Eddie murmur teasingly over to Richie.

 

“Yes,” Richie replied promptly, and Eddie squeaked a little at the non-joke response, which he had obviously not been anticipating.

 

Bill flinched a little bit at Eddie’s squeak, but then registered it for what it was and rolled his eyes. It took him another moment to re-formulate his sentence. Eddie had knocked him out of his thoughts pretty soundly.

 

“I...I just wanted to be in love, I think. I was falling in love left and right in the fall.”

 

“And we were the ones that stuck, huh?” Mike asked, and although it was something of a biting question, Mike’s intention was clearly not to be mean. Bill knew that, and he smiled quietly, shrugging his shoulders.

 

“I guess you did. And it was good for a while...really fucking good, wasn’t it?” he asked wistfully.

 

“It was good.” To everyone’s surprise, Stan was the one who stepped forward and agreed. “Until it wasn’t.”

 

Bill sighed. “Until the two of you realized that I’m a whole dumbass.”

 

Mike winced at Bill’s wording. “Getting what you want is complicated.”

 

“And it helps to not jump right in,” offered Stan. “I think, actually, that if we’d taken things a little bit slower, like Richie and Eddie, that we might have been able to resolve our issues more neatly. Not that I’m saying that Richie and Eddie did everything or really anything right, but.”

 

Bill raised an eyebrow at Stan, and Stan flushed a little bit, jamming his hands in his pockets and scowling. Richie and Eddie, for their part, were whispering to one another, and seemed to have missed Stan’s dig at them entirely.

 

“So you’d take me back?” Bill asked pointedly, and everyone went silent again.

 

Well, no. Everyone went silent except for Richie, who had just started listening again, and felt the need to contribute by letting out a long, dramatic gasp. For once, though, Richie’s humor actually diffused the situation instead of making it worse - everyone groaned, and the question immediately felt less heavy than it actually was. Eddie clapped a hand exasperatedly over his boyfriend’s mouth, and Mike made to speak.

 

“Wasn’t it you that told us to be careful what we wish for?” Mike asked, voice strained, and Bill threw his head back and laughed.

 

“Yeah, yeah. No, I’m kidding. Probably not smart to try again right now. I still like you both as people, but.” Bill’s smile was sheepish as he said his next piece. “You guys are too mean to me.”

 

You could practically hear the collective eye roll that Bill’s statement garnered..

 

“Just because we don’t like being bossed around--” Stan started hotly, but Mike nudged him gently and he lost track of his rant.

 

“Anyway,” Bill said softly, smiling as he looked between Mike and Stan. “Maybe in a couple of years, we’ll see, or maybe not. We’ll get there. I just wanna make sure we stay friends.”

 

That was exactly the right thing to say. Stan and Mike looked at one another and then back at Bill, obviously impressed with how collected he’d become, and Ben found himself approaching Bill gratefully.

 

“Agreed,” he said, holding out a hand for Bill to shake. “We probably should have thought about that before we all jumped into crazy relationships, huh?”

 

Bill took his hand and tugged on it, pulling him into a full embrace. “So says the man whose relationship has literally never been a source of drama for the group. Ben, you’re astonishing.”

 

Ben hugged him back awkwardly - he’d never been good at hugs, he’d had very little practice, and so he found himself trying to convey sentiment through stilted back-pats. “I mean, you dated Beverly, too.”

 

Eddie’s jaw dropped as Bill and Ben pulled away from their embrace. He looked incredulously at Bill. “I thought you were gay!”

 

The group erupted in laughter, and Eddie’s ears turned red. 

 

“What’s so funny?”

 

“Nothing, nothing,” Bill assured him through wheezy giggles, at the same time that Richie crowed, “Hands on your head, Denbrough! It’s Eddie Kaspbrak from the gay police, here to remind you that no gay diet means no gay powers---”

 

Stan elbowed Richie in the stomach. “Enough, Wallace Wells.”

 

With a start, Ben noticed that the crowds around them were dwindling. It was starting to get late - they’d really lost track of time.

 

“Should we be moving?” Ben asked, wondering what on earth the Universal Team Members in the area had been thinking about their little drama circle for the past however many hours. “This is weird, right, that we’ve been standing here this long?”

 

Murmurs of assent rose around the circle. “Weird that no one’s told us off,” Mike said, frowning at the storefront they’d parked themselves in front of. “Richie’s said ‘fuck’ really loudly quite a few times during this conversation.”

 

“Me?” Richie gestured wildly towards everyone else in their little circle. “Eddie almost cried...and he outed Bill to all of Universal Studios! That’s not good Hufflepuff behavior.”

 

“You thought I was breaking up with you!” Eddie retorted, tugging at the front of Richie’s ‘Mischief Managed’ t-shirt. “That’s not good Smart House behavior! Is there a dumb house?”

 

“Yes,” Stan said neatly. “It’s called your apartment, Eddie.”

 

Mike put a hand over his face to mask his amusement at Eddie’s responding squawk. “Okay, guys, seriously. Do we need anything else here? Eddie, did you want to buy a stuffed animal?”

 

Eddie gazed wistfully into the store window. “Oh. I...no.”

 

Ben made a mental note to remind Richie to buy Eddie a stuffed owl for his birthday.

 

“If nobody wants anything else, we should go,” Stan agreed, tugging at one of his curls. “We’ve already done Forbidden Journey...there’s nothing else here, right? And we’re not doing the Hogwarts Express because fuck the Universal Studios side?”

 

“Fuck the Universal Studios side,” they all chorused, grinning.

 

“I don’t want to do Kong again,” Ben said meekly, “if that’s okay.”

 

“Same,” Richie and Eddie said loudly, glancing at one another in terror. They’d done Kong first because it was a new ride and they had wanted to beat the inevitable mid-day line, and the experience had been nothing short of a mess. It had been fifteen terrible minutes of dinosaurs, giant bugs, and a huge, horrible Kong animatronic in graphic 3D, and it had taken Eddie a full forty-five minutes to calm down afterwards, mostly because Richie was also panicking.

 

“What about Jurassic Park?” Mike suggested. Eddie looked a little conflicted about that, but after a quick moment, he nodded.

 

“If I’m gonna die, I might as well be thinking about Chris Pratt when I go,” he sighed.

 

Richie squinted at him. “Chris Pratt, huh?”

 

“You guys go ahead,” Bill said, turning to face Ben. Ben felt suddenly nervous, as if Bill had put him under a spotlight or a magnifying glass, and tried to keep his face from contorting stupidly. “I want to buy Ben a new Butterbeer real quick. He didn’t end up drinking any of his last one because we were being dumb.”

 

Everyone’s face fell. One by one, their eyes flickered over to him, and Ben could tell that the regret they were projecting was sincere.

 

God, it was amazing to have friends.

 

“We’re sorry, Ben,” they mumbled disjointedly, and Ben couldn’t help but smile.

 

“I love you guys,” he said earnestly. “I don’t care about Butterbeer. I just want to help.”

 

Richie promptly bounded forwards and wrapped Ben up in a terrible, bony embrace. “You’re the best of us, kid. We love you.”

 

“We love you,” Eddie echoed, scampering after Richie to attach himself to the parts of Ben that Richie hadn’t already wrapped himself around. Mike and Stan followed suit, and finally, Bill completed the circle, fitting in neatly between Mike and Richie.

 

It felt like home.

 

Almost.

 

“I wish Bev were here,” he said before he could stop himself, and the hug promptly evaporated; they fell off of each other, laughing agreeably.

 

“If Bev were here, all of this would have been solved three hours ago,” Mike pointed out.

 

“Cheers to that,” Richie agreed. “It’s okay, though, Haystack, we’ll have her soon enough. Go get your Butterbeer.”

 

“Bill really doesn’t have to,” Ben said, suddenly over-cognizant of the fact that he’d thrown away his Butterbeer from before because he was afraid, not because of their conversation.

 

Bill looked at him knowingly. “Bill wants to. Save us a place in line, Rich.”

 

“Roger roger,” Richie said in his best Star Wars Droid voice, saluting and then turning towards the bridge to the dinosaur section of the park. “Tally ho, Edward! Chris Pratt awaits.”

 

“You’re jealous, so you break out the British Guy?” Eddie asked, nose wrinkling in distaste. “Really?”

 

“You know, Ben kind of looks like Chris Pratt from some angles,” Stan offered dryly, pushing past the two of them to lead the way to Jurassic Park, and they followed noisily. Bill, Ben, and Mike watched them go until the last of Richie’s “ _ That’s not funny, you dickless fuck!” _ s faded into the din of the dwindling crowd.

 

“I wanted to talk to Ben, too,” Mike finally said before either Bill or Ben could ask him why he stayed. “Okay if I crash?”

 

Bill shrugged amiably. “Fine by me.”

 

“Yeah,” Ben agreed, eyeing the Butterbeer cart warily. “But Bill, you really don’t--”

 

“Bev wants me to make sure that you’re eating,” Bill explained, shuffling his feet. “She worries. And also, um. I worry.”

 

“We all worry,” Mike confirmed, looking at Ben seriously.

 

Ben felt a mix of exasperation and warmth overtake him. He didn’t need to be watched over like a child...but then, what were friends for if they didn’t care about stuff like this?

 

Would he ever be used to having friends?

 

“Fine,” Ben conceded, moving to get in line. “I’ll try.”

 

“You can do it, Ben,” Mike said reassuringly, and Bill nodded along. “We’ll be right here.”

 

That was a cheesy way of framing their support, but Ben found himself grateful for it nonetheless.

 

“Thank you,” he said, looking readily at Mike. “Thanks. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about, too?”

 

“Oh, no, actually.” Mike joined him in line, squeezing in front of the two girls that had gotten in line immediately after Ben and garnering incredibly hostile looks from both of them. “I wanted to apologize for not letting you know before now that I was thinking about moving in with Stan. I’ve been trying to bring it up with you for awhile, but I never figured out how to do it. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blindside you.”

 

Ben almost laughed. He’d just about forgotten that piece of the conversation - it felt like so much had happened since then.

 

“It’s okay, Mike,” he said, clapping Mike on the shoulder. “I think it’s good that you and Stan get some space. Don’t worry about me.”

 

“We do worry about you, though,” Bill chimed in, sliding next to Mike and earning more angry, muttered curses from the girls behind them. “We want you to be happy and well.”

 

“I’ve managed alone before,” Ben pointed out, crossing his arms defensively over his chest. “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

 

“We don’t want you to be alone if you don’t have to be alone, though,” Mike explained, and Bill made a small noise of agreement. Ben looked between the two of them in vague amusement - it was nice and also kind of funny to see them getting along again.

 

“I have an idea about that, actually,” Bill said, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

 

Ben had a feeling he knew where Bill was going with this, and he shoved his hands in his pockets resignedly. He’d thought of this himself, of course...hell, he’d thought about it a million times, but…

 

“Haven’t we already gone over ‘be careful what you wish for’?” Ben asked sadly, smiling a small, appreciative smile back at Bill. “Who knows what would happen if I asked Bev to move in with me?”

 

Mike stared at him in disbelief. “Well, for starters, she might say yes and be really happy about it...so you have that to consider.”

 

“We’ve only just started having sex,” Ben protested, flushing red, “we’re hardly ready to be roommates.”

 

“And they were roommates,” Mike muttered, and then winced as Bill let out a loud cackle.

 

“Oh, Stan has really wormed his way into your brain, hasn’t he,” Bill said fondly.

 

“He definitely has,” Mike agreed, and Ben couldn’t help but smile at the pride in Mike’s eyes.

 

“But anyways,” Bill continued, “what does that have to do with anything? You and Bev are together practically all the time anyways. This would be a good way to see if being official with that changes anything.”

 

Ben felt a little lost, and wanted to say so, but didn’t know how to phrase it. Instead, he asked, “Why would I want to see if living with her changes anything? I don’t want anything to change. Things are really good right now.”

 

Mike sighed, but his eyes were fond. “You do want things to change, Ben. I think so, anyway. You’ve been window shopping in a lot of jewelry stores lately.”

 

Ben could absolutely not deny that Mike was right about that. He’d spent what had to be hours staring at rings in glass cases at the Mall at Millenia, wondering if he’d ever be able to work up the nerve to buy one (because just like Bev knew that their little group of seven was destined, so Ben knew that he was never going to love another human being the way he loved Beverly Marsh).

 

When Mike put it that way, it did make sense to move in with Bev as a sort of trial run.

 

“How should I ask her?” he asked quietly, and Bill let out a short whoop of excitement. 

 

Unfortunately, the question had to be put on pause - they’d reached the front of the Butterbeer line, and Bill was looking at him expectantly.

 

“What’ll it be?” the Team Member serving drinks at the cart asked wearily.

 

“One frozen Butterbeer, please,” Ben said meekly, and the Team Member set off to making it. Beside Ben, Bill began fishing around in his pockets for his wallet, and was fortunately able to procure it by the time the girl was back with Ben’s drink. He paid and handed Ben the drink, and Ben took it with shaky hands.

 

He could do this.

 

“Do you want something elaborate, or something bare-bones?” Bill asked as soon as they were away from the cart and en route to Jurassic Park. “For a move-in proposal, that is.”

 

“He needs a proposal?” Mike asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow at Bill. “Can’t they just have a conversation?”

 

“That would be bare-bones,” Bill said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

 

Ben stared at his Butterbeer, and then looked back out towards the dinosaur theming area they were moving into. The “jungle” aesthetic they were going for was undercut by concrete walls and steel vending carts, and Ben found himself longing for Disney.

 

In that moment, he realized he had an answer for Bill.

 

(He could do this.)

 

“Let’s say I wanted to go elaborate,” Ben said, smiling softly to himself. “What would I have to do to impress Bev into agreeing to live with me?”

 

Bill’s face lit up, and Mike’s eyes widened in surprise.

 

“I have a couple of thoughts,” Bill said excitedly, tapping Ben’s arm erratically. “I’ll tell them to you in line, and you can tell me what you think, yeah?”

 

Ben thought of the way Bev had lit up on their first date when the fireworks had started - the starry look on her beautiful face as she’d registered exactly how much attention to detail Ben had paid, and the way she’d grabbed for his hand afterwards, as if trying to thank him through her fingertips.

 

He took a careful sip of his Butterbeer.

 

“I’d like that very much.”

 

He could do this...and damn it if it wasn’t going to be perfect when he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew, that was an emotional workout.
> 
> let it be known that I do not share in all of these opinions about Universal Studios. I love Universal and I think the team there does a great job.
> 
> one more after this, folks. we're winding down. let me know how you're feeling about it in the comments or at skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com <3


	14. "The Second Star to the Right" (Richie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I was wondering if you were happy. That’s all.”

**RICHIE TOZIER  
** **ATTRACTIONS CAST - JUNGLE CRUISE** **  
** **soon to be  
** **NOT EMPLOYED BY THE MOUSE  
** **but for the meantime, he’s in  
** **ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA - DISNEYLAND PARK  
** **JULY 20th** **  
** **8 P.M.  
**

“I have something to say.”  
  


If any one of the five people trudging towards Tomorrowland that weren’t Eddie had spoken up, Richie would have kept on walking. Total cold shoulder, doneski. He was tired of hashing shit out with his friends in public places, and they’d all promised to be cool at Disneyland. They’d kept that promise so far. There was no reason to ruin everything with only two park hours left in the whole fucking trip.  
  


But. It was Eddie, so he did what needed to be done.  
  


He stopped in the dead center of the walkway, and let Stan, Bev, and Bill crash into him like demented human dominoes.  
  


“Richard,” Stan said into his back. Richie hadn’t turned around to assess the damage - he couldn’t, given the fact that Stan’s face was firmly planted between his shoulder blades - but the violent whispered curses and smack of hands against pavement coming from behind him suggested that Bev and Bill had truly been knocked down and were getting back up again, Chumbawumba style.  
  


“In my defense--” Richie began, but he knew before he even started the sentence that it was fruitless. There was a 100% chance that Stan was going to shove him towards the nearest trashcan (and there was always a nearest trashcan - good ol’ Walt with his ‘trashcans every 10 feet’ rule).  
  


His only real mistake was trying to catch his fall with his hands rather than just crashing into the aluminum menace forthright. Putting his arms out in front of him meant that he pushed open the swinging trash cover just enough to be elbow-deep in someone’s discarded Dole Whip.  
  


“Well,” Richie said, extracting his hands and assessing the damage. “At least we weren’t in Toontown. Dunno  _ what _ I would have all over my hands if we were.”  
  


“Yeah, at least coming out of Adventureland you know that if it’s yellow-orange, it’s Dole Whip,” Ben agreed. Bev, who was still glowering at Richie, smacked Ben on the arm as if to chastise him for even speaking to Richie, and Ben was forced to shrug apologetically.  
  


“Oh, you idiot. You deserved that.” Richie heard Eddie’s disgruntled mumbling before he saw him, but even without the visual, Richie knew exactly what his boyfriend was doing: rushing towards Richie with Kleenex and maybe a wet wipe in his outstretched hands. Richie turned a little bit to look at Eddie’s frenzied fumbling, smiled softly at the sight, and decided that it probably wasn’t the right moment to tell him that he hadn’t zipped his fanny pack back up all the way. There’d be a funnier time to break that news - like right before they were strapped in at Space Mountain, for example.  
  


Richie took the Kleenex and looked back at the rest of their friends. Bill was examining his hands - it looked like he’d taken the brunt of the fall, as further evidenced by the expression on Mike’s face as he looked conflictedly between Bill’s stinging red palms and Richie’s face. Stan was over leaning on the nearest lamppost, a satisfied smirk on his face, and Ben and Bev were right behind Eddie, trying and failing not to giggle to themselves over Eddie’s nursing tendencies.  
  


Even with everything that had just gone down, the energy in the air felt really chill. The seven of them were zen with one another in a way that they hadn’t been since the previous fall, and Richie was totally into it.  
  


He turned his eyes back down towards Eddie, who was muttering to himself as he meticulously sanitized and wiped down every inch of Richie’s hands, and allowed himself to feel a little bit surprised.  
  


It was kind of a fucking miracle that their little orientation group of sorts had made it through the year.  
  


More than that - it was definitely a fucking miracle that Mike was crossing over to Stan the way that he was, that their mock-exasperated nudges were still precursors to enclasped hands. It was a gigantic fucking miracle that Eddie was getting rid of the Kleenex, now, and attaching himself to Richie’s side like a sloth - a gigantic fucking miracle that Richie had to re-wrap his mind around every damn day.  
  


Ben and Bev were...less of a miracle, but that was heterosexuals for you. Richie didn’t begrudge them their stability - in fact, he was pretty frigging impressed by it, especially given the shit Bev had gone through. (As the only two occasional smokers in the group and often the only two who had any taste in anything at all, they’d decided to suck it up and go all in on their individual friendship...and fuck, had that been a good decision. It was enough to make him almost regret heckling her at costuming before they’d really known each other, now. Almost.)  
  


And then the biggest miracle of all was Bill fucking Denbrough, who had now crossed to lean against the offending trash can. Richie was no expert on maturity, but even he could tell that Bill was a different kind of dude now than he was six months ago (never mind the kid he’d been when he and Richie had first met). 25 years old, and Bill was finally getting somewhere.  
  


And Richie...Richie was too. It was different, but also kind of the same, so he and Bill had a neat little solidarity that neither of them really understood going on. It was pretty fucking great.  
  


“Eddie, did you want to say something?” Bill asked, steadfastly ignoring his phone buzzing in his pocket in favor of paying attention to his friends. Richie made eye contact with Stan upon noticing Bill’s lack of attachment to his device, because he knew Stan would notice too, and they shared an impressed eyebrow waggle before turning towards Eddie.  
  


“Yes.” Richie couldn’t see Eddie’s face in the position that they were in, just the top of his head, but he could feel Eddie nodding against his arm. “And it’s important.”  
  


“You’re leaving Richie for me,” Mike guessed, sliding his hand out from where it had been intertwined with Stan’s and planting it on his hip jauntily. Richie mirrored him with his own hand, bopping his hip a little to distract everyone from the fact that he really, really hated this joke.  
  


Not that they didn’t know, anyway. Not that he hadn’t made it obvious every damn time that he was sensitive or insecure or whatever the fuck about this particular thing. But - what kind of funnyman was he if he couldn’t take a joke, right? Even if it was the _ same damn joke _ about one of Richie’s deepest fears made for  _ a month straight _ .  
  


But - there was still something different in the air tonight, and Richie could tell that Stan was in touch with it. He was less drawn back than usual; more comfortable in his own skin - if Richie was going to do an impression of the Stan in front of him in that very instant, he’d slump his shoulders a little bit instead of drawing them up to his ears like he usually did.  
  


It was probably for that reason that Stan said “Say it, Eddie,” instead of his usual “No, you’re leaving Richie for ME,” and Richie let out a relieved guffaw.   
  


“Hit it, Fer-gie,” he drawled, keeping Stan’s ‘say it, Eddie’ cadence, and Stan flipped him off with a sweet, sappy grin.  
  


Eddie noticed absolutely none of the weirdness in the previous exchange, which Richie found to be equal parts adorable and concerning. He just plowed on ahead.  
  


“I want to remind everyone that Bev and I have little legs,” Eddie said, taking a moment to glare at every single one of them individually, “and that we have been walking for four days, and when you have to jog to keep up--”  
  


“Good point!” Bev chimed in. “You’re giants and monsters, all of you.”  
  


“So,” Bill said, looking between Eddie and Bev in an attempt to figure out what was being asked of him. “You’re...tired?”  
  


“And also I would like some ice cream,” Eddie finished, and immediately turned on Richie to give puppy-dog eyes.  
  


God, the fucking puppy-dog eyes. He really needed to get better at resisting those, or he’d be at Eddie’s beck and call for the rest of his miserable--  
  


...well, no. It wouldn’t be miserable if it were with Eddie - not by a long shot.  
  


“I’ll buy you one,” Richie said resolutely, and then absolutely couldn’t help but lean down and kiss his smiling mouth.  
  


(He still couldn’t really believe he got to do that whenever he wanted, when all was said and done. He wasn’t about to waste an opportunity.)  
  


“We can afford to slow down, definitely.” Ben was smiling that soft, easy, reassuring Ben smile, and Richie kind of loved him for it. He was shutting down the ‘pack as much as you can into the last two hours’ counterargument before it had even begun. “Maybe we just do Star Tours and then head to the hub for the fireworks? If we get there early we’ll probably be closer to the castle.”  
  


“Good deal,” Richie agreed, grinning at the thought of riding Star Tours again. He’d been making up new little incorrect facts about Star Wars throughout the trip and feeding them to Eddie, and he was hoping that by the time they finished their vacation, Eddie would have total confidence in a version of Star Wars that absolutely did not exist. He was sure that particular prank would pay off solidly someday. “Wanna walk?”  
  


“Ice cream cart first,” Eddie insisted, grabbing Richie’s hand and leading him out towards Main Street. “I wanna bite Mickey’s ice cream ears off.”  
  


“Bizarre and vaguely sexual of you, Eddie,” Stan commented, mirroring Eddie by taking Mike’s hand and pulling. “We’re in.”  
  


“Same,” chorused Bev, sneaking up to push her way in the middle of Richie and Eddie. They allowed her into their sphere with matching smiles, slinging their arms over and around her. “Boys? You ready?”  
  


Ben and Bill looked quickly at one another, and then back at Bev, and Richie inhaled sharply. There was a secret inherent in their interaction - Richie was kind of generally a dumbass, but he was good at reading a room, and what Ben and Bill had going seemed like kind of a big deal.   
  


Was tonight going to be the night…?  
  


Bev, for her part, didn’t suspect a thing. She waved an idle hand at them and carried on. “Hurry up, then.”  
  


Richie bit his lip and allowed himself to be dragged along. His thoughts were racing, which meant he was uncharacteristically silent amidst his friends’ chatter.   
  


If Ben was going to say his piece, Richie should probably follow suit, right? Not that Ben’s thing and Richie’s thing were even remotely similar, but...Richie was starting to learn that it was better to have everything out in the open.   
  


It was funny, he thought, that wishes came with responsibilities - that he’d gotten exactly what he wanted with his friends and his relationships, and things were still sometimes hard. There was no way around having to fix his garbage communication skills anymore. Self-improvement had become a weird sort of necessity.  
  


But. Maybe he had kind of wished for that, too.  
  


“Eddie,” he said, willing himself to not chicken out.  
  


They had arrived at the ice cream cart. Eddie disentangled himself from Bev, slid past Stan and Mike, and planted himself in front of Richie, eyes dark with concern.  
  


“My whole name, huh?” Eddie asked softly, biting at his bottom lip. Behind him, Bill and Ben were finally approaching the group. They were talking in low voices, and Richie clenched his fists, wishing vaguely to have some of their strength; to be less terrified of telling the truth.   
  


“Eds,” Richie corrected himself, pushing a hand back through his hair nervously. “I’ve been meaning...I was going to tell you something. Or ask. Maybe.”  
  


Eddie’s eyes widened. “Richie, if this is a proposal, why did you pick the least romantic spot in all of Disneyland--”  
  


“No, no,” Richie said quickly, putting his hands in front of him to drive home the point. “No. Uh. I got a call right before we left from the theatre I’ve been performing at, and they have an opening for a full-time member of their production team…”  
  


“You told me you applied,” Eddie reminded him, putting a reassuring hand on his forearm. “Are you trying to tell me you got the job?”  
  


Richie stared at Eddie’s face, willing him to express some kind of emotion for Richie to gauge, but it wasn’t taking - Eddie’s features remained annoyingly blank.  
  


“Yes,” Richie said, closing his eyes and hoping for the best. “And. I think...I think I really want it.”  
  


Eddie didn’t respond out loud for a moment. Instead, he slid a hand up to Richie’s face, and traced his thumb over Richie’s cheekbone.  
  


“I’m so proud of you,” Eddie whispered, and Richie felt all of the tension leave his body in one fell swoop. He fell down into Eddie’s arms bonelessly, and Eddie stumbled backwards a little bit.  
  


“It means that I’d be leaving the company,” Richie reminded him, lips tight against Eddie’s ear.  
  


“But it’s a permanent position,” Eddie replied, and Richie could all but see the smile on his cute little face. “You’re going to be in Orlando, still. We’re going to be together.”  
  


“We are,” Richie confirmed, straightening up and smiling back down at Eddie. “I was just...I didn’t know if--”  
  


Eddie laughed sweetly and took both of Richie’s hands in his own. “Idiot. Aren’t we past this? I love you.” He tilted his face up expectantly. “I’m glad you told me.”  
  


Richie couldn’t help but oblige him with a kiss. “Sorry I’m stupid.”  
  


“Don’t get in the habit of saying that or it’s all you’ll ever say from here on out.” Stan was walking towards them, holding out two Mickey ice cream bars. “You’re welcome for these, by the way. If you try to pay me back by sneaking money into my wallet when you think I’m not paying attention, Richie, I’ll release incriminating screenshots into the group chat.”  
  


“If it’s the conversation where the two of you talk at length about High School Musical, I’ve already seen it,” Eddie said, taking an ice cream bar and tearing open the wrapper.  
  


Stan sighed. “I’ll think of something else, then.”  
  


“If we’re set with ice cream, then we should get moving,” Bill announced, checking his watch. “We don’t have as much time as we think. We should get in line for Star Tours as soon as possible.”  
  


“We’re really gunning for good seats at the fireworks, huh?” Mike asked teasingly, clapping Bill on the shoulder. Bill smiled a little bit, but it was clear that his agreeing nod was serious - and his little glance at Ben after he finished nodding was, too.  
  


God. It was really going to happen tonight.  
  


“Let’s go, then,” Richie said, not wanting to begrudge Ben any last little detail. He unwrapped his ice cream bar and tried to insert as much of it into his mouth as he possibly could. “Strrrr Trrrrr awhrrrh!”  
  


“He means Star Tours away,” Eddie translated, biting one of Mickey’s ears off neatly. “And let’s please not run. My legs are so little.”  
  


“Walking fast?” Bill offered, smiling cheekily.  
  


“Walking at a pace that is comfortable for everyone,” Mike said, moving to demonstrate said pace, and together they fell into an easy step.  
  


The wait time for Star Tours was short - only 10 minutes - and they gathered at the mouth of the line for a quick moment before plunging ahead.   
  


“We’re okay with this being our last ride?” Bev asked, leaning against the metal frame of the attraction with her hands in her pockets. “Ben, you didn’t want it to be Indiana Jones?”  
  


Ben shook his head wistfully. “As great as that ride is, I’m good.”  
  


She met Richie’s eyes, then, and he knew immediately what she was about to ask. “And Richie--”  
  


“Mr. Toad and I are good for now,” Richie assured her with a wink. “No need to revisit that one. Let’s go into space, huh?”  
  


No one agreed out loud, but Bill started moving into the queue and the rest of them were following suit, so Richie allowed himself a moment of feeling like his leadership skills had improved before wandering after them.  
  


“Do you think that if we see the Ewoks again, Luke Skywalker will be with them? He’s their leader, right?” Eddie asked, turning towards Richie with wide eyes.  
  


Richie slid his arm over Eddie’s shoulders in a practiced motion and made to respond, but Stan beat him to it.  
  


“Luke Skywalker can’t be the leader of the Ewoks because his lightsaber is red and theirs are all green, Eddie,” Stan said matter-of-factly. “If you knew anything about Star Wars, you’d know that. Luke Skywalker’s only allowed to lead those guys in planes. Red Luke Leader and all that.”  
  


Richie quickly pulled out his phone to set a reminder to thank Stan somehow for his genius addition to Richie’s newly invented Star Wars lore, and also to ask Stan how much of that he genuinely believed was true.

  
“Planes?” Eddie wrinkled his nose. “I thought the stereotype was that gays couldn’t drive.”  
  


“I am very proud of the work that I’m doing on Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge,” Ben interjected loudly, “and I cannot wait to never show any of you what I’m doing, or go to that park with you when it opens, or talk to any of you about Star Wars ever again.”  
  


Richie laughed out loud. “Ben, buddy, you’ve got to settle down. Your emotions are betraying you. Have you ever heard the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise--”  
  


Bill turned around from the front of the queue, forehead cinched up in either stress or amusement. “Wait, no, that can’t be a real thing.”  
  


“That’s the only thing that’s been said this entire time that’s a real thing, actually,” Mike said through gritted teeth.  
  


“Should we watch Star Wars on our next movie night?” Bev asked, smiling thinly. “Would that resolve a few things?”  
  


The responses to that were chaotic and entirely mixed, and Richie reveled in the fact that the anarchy he’d caused lasted all the way up until they got on to the ride.  
  


Their simulator went through the pod-racing section, and then Naboo with the Gungans, which meant that Stan was going to be speaking in incomprehensible memes for days. Richie would have complained loudly and obnoxiously about that, but it was almost time for the fireworks, which meant that it was almost time for Ben’s big moment.  
  


Richie didn’t want to insert himself in the middle of whatever Ben and Bill were planning, but he couldn’t help feeling a little bit nervous about the whole thing….which was weird, because he usually didn’t feel nervous about things that weren’t his.  
  


This thing was different, though. This thing had some gravity to it, and there were a bunch of different ways it could go wrong.

  
First of all, Bill didn’t have an amazing track record with plans like these. Granted, Ben and Bev weren’t Stan and Mike, but having Bill involved meant that everything was probably going to be a lot riskier than it would be otherwise, and Richie was tired of risk-taking where his friends were involved. They’d agreed on no drama for this trip. This could knock that whole agreement out of whack.  
  


Second, if Ben pulled this off...well, everything would change, wouldn’t it? They’d just finally gotten their shit together well enough to be friends again. Would they be able to survive a change at this point?  
  


Third...well, third was Eddie, and all of the things that he was going to have to start thinking about if Ben was successful.  
  


Third could wait.  
  


But. First and second were legitimate issues, and it was for that reason that Richie found himself slipping away from Eddie and Stan and sidling over to Bill.  
  


“What’s the plan?” he asked, speaking quickly and quietly so as not to be overheard.  
  


Bill raised his eyebrows, but otherwise didn’t seem surprised that Richie was asking. “Just getting as close as we can so that Ben can do his thing when it starts. Nothing elaborate.”  
  


“Nothing risky?” Richie asked, doing his best Stan impression. “No personal pyrotechnics, no Goofy go-go dancers--”  
  


“Just you,” Bill joked, eyes shiny with mischief. “You’re the only risk. Don’t fuck anything up, Richie.”  
  


“Yeah, nah, I won’t,” Richie agreed. “But. It’s gonna be okay, right?”  
  


Bill took a moment to look thoughtful, and Richie almost rolled his eyes. It was a yes or no question, and the correct answer was obvious, but when Bill responded, Richie found himself kind of grateful that Bill hadn’t taken the easy way out.  
  


“You know how Bev thinks our friendship is destiny?” he asked, smiling a secret smile.  
  


“Don’t fucking beat around the bush, Denbrough,” Richie complained, tugging at the hairband around his wrist irritably.   
  


“I have a point,” Bill said, “which is that I agree with her, except that I think that the destiny part is more us destined to want to be around each other, which is different than just being destined to be friends. We have to work on it, but we will, because we want to.”  
  


Richie sighed. “So what you’re saying is that it doesn’t matter what we do because we’re gonna work it out in the end no matter what?”  
  


Bill shrugged. “Sure.”  
  


Richie thought about pressing the issue, but ultimately decided against it. What Bill said had been comforting, in a way, and that was enough.  
  


“Why are you helping with this, anyway?” he asked instead, adjusting his glasses idly. “Aren’t you sick of being around relationships at this point?”  
  


Bill tapped at his phone in his pocket with another secret smile. “Don’t count me out yet, Rich. I’ve got someone to introduce you to when we get back. And so...no. I’m good.” He paused, looking over at Ben and Bev, who were talking excitedly to one another as they pushed through the crowd, looking for an optimal spot. “And they’re going to be so happy.”  
  


“I guess that’s all we can ask for,” Richie said, smiling a little bit as he watched them laugh together.   
  


“What is?” Eddie, Stan, and Mike had caught up to them - or maybe had come back to them, Richie had lost track of them completely for a moment.  
  


“Being happy,” Bill replied, stopping just off to the side of the Disneyland Partners statue. “Is this a good spot?”  
  


“Yes!” everyone chorused in unison. They’d have a perfect view of both the castle and the fireworks from where they were.  
  


Richie turned to Eddie and proffered a hand, and Eddie took it, beaming widely up at him. Seized with a sweet impulse, Richie raised Eddie’s hand to his mouth, and Eddie laughed, rolling his eyes with a quiet sort of affection that made Richie’s heart stutter a little bit. He opened his mouth to speak, but Eddie shushed him before he could start.  
  


“Don’t say a single thing about dreams coming true or whatever tacky Disney shit,” Eddie warned amidst giggles, trying and failing to narrow his eyes.  
  


“No…” Richie started, willing the right words to come out of his mouth, “no, I was thinking, actually…”  
  


Eddie tugged sharply at his arm, huffing out a shaky breath. “Is THIS a proposal?”  
  


“No.” Richie turned his head to make solid eye contact with Eddie. “No, we’ve still...not yet, sweetheart, we’ve still got some shit to work out before that goes down, I think. But I was wondering...I was wondering if you were happy. That’s all.”  
  


The music around them swelled, and the first firework lit from over Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Eddie gasped, eyes alight, and out of the corner of his eye, Richie saw Ben go down on one knee.  
  


Richie knew Bev had said yes by the whoops and cheers that exploded around him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of Eddie’s face.  
  


“Eddie,” Richie said again, willing Eddie to smile.  
  


Eddie’s responding grin was absolutely enormous.  
  


“I’m happy, Richie,” he replied, “I am so fucking happy.”  
  


When Richie closed his eyes, he could see reflections in front of his eyelids - of Ben kneeling down, of the fireworks going off over the castle, of Eddie’s blinding, beautiful smile.  
  


He opened his eyes again.  
  


“Me too, Eds,” he said, taking Eddie’s hand and soaking in the moment. “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a happy ending.
> 
> thank you all for bearing with these Losers and I <3
> 
> give me a shout in the comments or at skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com if you're feelin' it. much love to all of you.


End file.
